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
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.”
“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
“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
“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 attache 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
