Desolate Angel (6 page)

Instead, I watched her work while a new understanding of her opened before me. Peggy’s real world came alive in her microscope. It was her window to discovering magical landscapes on the most ordinary of surfaces. Peggy not only shunned the wider world, she longed to live among the miniscule wonders of the objects she searched each day. She saw beauty in the rough surfaces she examined for evidence. She saw each grain, each ridge, every imperfection, as evidence of divine creation, proof positive that a greater hand was at work. Perhaps it was this certainty that made it impossible for her to truly be a part of the human race, with all of its folly. And, if so, was it so bad that she had reached out to others only when the basic needs of her heart made it necessary? She was truer to herself than most. Why had I not seen that before?

Maybe Peggy could help me.

After all, she saw beyond the ordinary every day. Maybe she could guide Maggie toward reopening the Alissa Hayes case. I knew all Maggie had to do was glance at the file and she would instantly see the connections between the two murders—though she’d have nothing but contempt for Danny once she realized he had either chosen to stay silent about the connection or, worse, not seen the similarities at all.

Evidence bags from last night’s crime scene were stored in a cardboard box on the counter by Peggy’s elbow. She was funneling them to the proper specialist for examination. She had placed three small bags to her left, awaiting her own scrutiny, and had processed nearly a dozen more, separating them into piles for further analysis. I stared at the bags, searching my memory, trying to identify something among the evidence that would make it obvious that this latest murder was connected to Alissa Hayes. I remembered so little beyond the initial crime scene.

Why had I not paid more attention when I was alive?

What had we nailed Alissa’s boyfriend on? It would have been something obvious as Danny and I had been incapable of spotting more. Bobby Daniels had been a student, just like Alissa. He’d also been a real Poindexter, neat and clean in his pressed jeans and starched flannel shirts and shiny work boots. Who the hell starched their flannel shirts? His hair was clipped short and his little glasses had sat on his nose so precisely that I had loathed him on sight. It was as if his very being was there to mock my own sloppiness, to make it more obvious that I clawed through each day barely managing to hold it together.

I had let my self-loathing and dislike of him interfere with my judgment. That had been the first step I took down the wrong path. Where had it led me?

I remembered a little more. He had been a geology major and classmate of Alissa’s. That was how they had met. When we first tied the crime to him, it was simply because it was an easy connection. There had been fingerprints on her belongings found at the scene, plus his hair and fibers from his hiking jacket were found on her body—though that could have been explained by their relationship had he bothered to try. His DNA, too, was present, but the boy had not denied that the two of them had slept together the night before Alissa’s death. What other evidence was there? I tried to remember more.

Maybe a look at the evidence from the new murder would help. I moved closer to the box and Peggy looked up abruptly, as if sensing me there. I froze, but she returned to her microscope. That was when I saw it. A plastic bag of sandy granules collected from underneath the dead girl’s foot, a glittering mixture of fine grains that did not belong at the scene. Maggie had discovered the substance and directed the techs to bring the grains back to the lab.

Similar granules had been on the few items of clothing found at the Alissa Hayes crime scene. I knew it with certainty. I just needed Peggy to realize it.

“Detective Gunn,” Peggy said, looking up at the doorway.

Maggie Gunn? Her name was Maggie Gunn. It was so perfect for her.

She entered the lab with a smile. “Hey, Peggy. How’s Mr. Whiskers?”

“Better. Antibiotics helped.”

“How does one give a mouse antibiotics anyway?”

“Very, very carefully.”

As the two women laughed, I joined in their delight. Of course—Peggy raised mice, not cats. Cats would be too big. Mice would be just right for her, with the perfection of their precise whiskers and tiny paws.

People, too, were fascinating, I realized, so perfect in their own way.

“How’s your dad doing?” Peggy asked.

Already they had exchanged more personal information than Peggy and I had exchanged in twenty years of working together.

“Okay. It’s hard on him,” Maggie said. “They were married a long time.”

“I know. Did you know I was sitting at a table next to them the night they had their first date?”

Maggie seemed surprised. “You’re kidding!”

Peggy’s eye twinkled. “Sal’s. Far right corner. Your mother ordered linguine with clam sauce. Your father had veal chops. Neither one of them saw anyone else in the restaurant but each other. I knew your father from his beat, and I knew your mother from the beauty shop. But most of all—I knew they’d be together from that night on. You could just see it.”

Maggie pulled up a stool and sat. “You never told me that.”

“It was one of the most romantic moments of my life,” Peggy admitted, and then, she had the great, good grace to laugh at herself.

As the women laughed together, I was filled with the knowledge that all people were connected by a great web of comings and goings, moments of passing through each other’s life, moments of touching one person, who then touched another, and on and on through the years, an ongoing, never-ending river. I could have been a part of it, if only I had been able to see beyond my own miserable shell. My ripples could have mattered. I could have been a part.

“Find anything good?” Maggie asked.

Peggy shook her head. “Got a name for the victim?”

“Not yet. Danny’s with Missing Persons. Maybe he’ll get a hit.”

Peggy glanced at her, not saying anything.

“He can’t do any harm down there,” Maggie said in his defense. “After that, he’s heading over to the college to see if anyone’s been reported missing.”

They were silent until Maggie asked, quietly, “Was he always like that? So . . . disheveled and sad?”

“Oh, no,” Peggy said. “Not always. He and Kevin were a real pair when they came out of the academy. Full of themselves. Cocky like every single other person who came through there back then. And they were something else to look at. Good-looking. Smart. Both of them. They were quite the pair. The women clerks would fight to be the one to help them.” She looked around for a moment, then focused her attention on a small shelf tucked in the darkness underneath her computer keyboard. “Let me show you something.” She rummaged behind some stacks of phone books and technical manuals, then produced an old framed photograph of Danny and me, before the bottle got us both. Dust covered its surface. She used a chamois cloth to wipe the photo clean. “Take a look. You’ll see what I mean.”

Maggie took the photo from her and brought it into the light. It was like being scalded, knowing that her incredible scrutiny was now focused on me. “God, Danny is like, what, half his size? And he has all of his hair.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“What’s with the rifles and hunting vests?”

“They helped track down a triple-homicide suspect who got loose in Ronkonkoma State Park and was terrifying the local campers.”

“That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

“It is.” Peggy laughed, but Maggie looked horrified and I knew then what photograph Peggy had given her. Five years into the job, Danny and I had helped bring down a true psychopath. Well, we had helped flush him out of the woods and then hung out along the edges while the real snipers brought him down with a shot to his left calf. After he had been handcuffed and bound by the ankles, Danny and I had had the bad taste to pose above him, guns held aloft, my booted foot hovering an inch above his torso, as if he was a deer we had just brought down. It had become a famous photo in the department, or an infamous one, depending on your reaction to it. I’d stopped looking at it a good ten years ago, unable to decide what made me more ashamed: that I had ever been so cocky or that I had long since stopped having any reason to be cocky at all.

“You had to know the two of them to understand that photo,” Peggy said. “Things were different back then.”

“I guess so.” Maggie sounded distracted. She was staring intently at my image and my body felt as if it were filling with embers. I glowed with the knowledge that she was thinking of me.

“Not bad, eh?”

Maggie smiled. “Not bad at all. Just my type.” She looked up at Peggy. “Tall, dark, and handsome. And full of himself.”

Peggy’s face turned suddenly sad. “He could have been a legend,” she said more softly.

“What happened?” Maggie asked, still staring at my photo.

“Life.” Peggy started to return the photo to its hiding place at the back of the shelf, but stopped. “Life happened. Here—you take the photo.”

“Me?”

“Yes,” Peggy decided. “I think he would have wanted you to have it.”

Maggie looked puzzled, but took the photograph anyway. “Thanks. I find it, well, I guess strangely compelling.”

“He had that effect on people. For a while. But I think the job got to him. That happens to some people. They just aren’t equipped. You see so many terrible things. The things people do to one another.”

Maggie thought about that without comment and I felt her attention slipping away from me. I wanted to jump in her face, to scream that I was there, to prove that I was still worthy of her notice, if only as a fleeting thought.

I didn’t matter to her. “Nothing unusual?” she asked Peggy, who had turned back to the comfort of her microscope. Their minds were back on the case.

Peggy shook her head. The rhinestone chain that clipped her glasses to her collar danced in the light, reminding me of the tiny crystals that linked the two murder cases.

I had to move now. The box sat between them on the counter. It didn’t weigh more than a couple of pounds, but I had never moved a physical object in my present state before. I didn’t even know if I could.

I stationed myself on the far side of the counter, reached over, and pushed. The box did not move. I could feel it, the cardboard walls had substance, but my pushing produced no resistance. I closed my eyes and concentrated, begging anyone and anything that might be there to help me, to give me the power to make the box move.

Nothing.

I thought of all I had failed to do in my life, all I had not even tried to do. I thought of Alissa Hayes, wandering the earth, appearing to me, asking me for my help, and of her boyfriend, who sat alone in a prison cell somewhere, having lost the woman he loved and then his life as he knew it. I thought of the young girl whose body had been dumped in the weeds and the old man who had knelt next to her, praying while his little dog waited obediently.

I was part of them. I was one of them. I was connected still, I told myself, or I would not be here. I still had a right to play my part.

The box moved. It slid over the edge of the counter and tumbled to the floor. Neatly sealed bags of evidence spilled onto the tile. And, instantly, I was overcome with a wave of pain so acute that I cannot describe it. Every fiber of my being throbbed with an agony so intense that it brought me to my knees.

I had violated the boundaries of my world. And I would pay the price.

I leaned my head against the counter, enduring the pain, telling myself that it would be worth it, as the two women dropped to their knees, frantic to preserve the evidence.

“What the ever-loving hell was that?” Maggie asked as she scooped up the bags and placed them back in the box. “Nothing broke, thank god.”

“I don’t know.” Peggy was old, but her fingers were nimble as she plucked bags from the floor. “I didn’t touch it. Did you?”

“I wasn’t even close to it . . .” Maggie’s voice trailed off. She leaned back on her heels and held up the small plastic bag of granules, examining the label. A bolt of exultation ran through me.
Yes.
“Did you get to this yet?”

Peggy shook her head. “Let me see.” She held the bag up to the light and scrutinized its contents. “Sand?”

“That’s your call, not mine. But I did think it was out of place. I found it near her right foot. I think it came out of a shoe, a shoe the killer probably took with him when he left. Maybe she was killed on a golf course?”

Peggy examined the bag more intently. “I see purple and black granules. This isn’t sand, but it sure is something.”

Think,
I willed Peggy.
Think back to the Alissa Hayes case. You’ve seen this before, you must remember.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Peggy the way she had been when she had testified at the trial. Had she held the bag of evidence in her hand? Had she been asked about the granules? I searched my imperfect memory for guidance, willing Peggy to remember, too.

“What is it?” Maggie asked, hearing something in Peggy’s voice that was going unsaid and noticing the stillness of her posture.

“I don’t know exactly.” Peggy struggled to her feet and slid back onto her stool, removing the slide that was under her scope and labeling its contents for further study. “I think I’ve seen this stuff before.”

“Where?”

“I don’t remember. But I will. It was another case. I just need some time to remember.”

I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, still throbbing with a pain that threatened the equilibrium I had grown accustomed to over the last six months. But pain could not kill me. I was already dead. And if I had done something to help, anything at all, it would be worth it in the end.

I willed Alissa Hayes to appear in my memory, trying to send the image to Peggy’s mind. If I could not cross the boundaries of the physical world, I would use what power I had to affect her thoughts and guide her emotions.