Angel of Darkness (20 page)

Olivia did not answer. She was seeing that evening in a different way for the first time since it had happened. I could feel something in Olivia coalesce and crumble as she clung to the proof of that carton of ice cream. Something heavy and dark inside her broke into infinitesimal pieces and fell away.

Miranda waited out her silence.

‘What do you mean?' Olivia finally asked. She sounded fearful of the answer.

‘I mean that it wasn't your fault,' Miranda explained gently. ‘It was your husband's choice to take your daughter for a drive that night.'

‘But I remember it so clearly,' Olivia said. ‘I practically threw him out of the house.'

Miranda shook her head. ‘I know that's what you think happened,' she said. ‘But your neighbor is very specific. The important thing is that you probably remember it the way you do for a reason, and we need to find out what that reason is. If we can figure out why it is that you feel so guilty about Emily's death, then . . .' She smiled. ‘Well, it would be a start.'

Olivia could not take it all in. She was unable to respond. But I felt a light inside her start to grow, erasing the darkness she had carried around for so long. Miranda was right. It was a beginning of sorts – and it meant that something good, however small, had come out of what was happening at Holloway.

The psychiatrist's death had brought Miranda and Olivia together, and because of that, there was a chance that Olivia could escape the prison her mind had imposed upon her.

From darkness shall come the light.

It seemed to me a kind of miracle, the kind that made me believe there was a purpose to my still being here on this earthly plane. Something bigger than me, bigger even than Otis Parker, was guiding us toward the light and, in the end, making the terrible things that human beings could do to one another better. Not perfect but, somehow, better.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I
wanted to see my real family. In the weeks following my death, I had often stood across the street from my old house wondering if they mourned me – or if they secretly felt a sense of relief. Eventually I had wearied of self-torture and moved on.

This time was different. This time it wasn't about me. I had seen Connie march my son out of Holloway, I had felt Otis Parker's power, and I needed to know that they were safe.

They were gathered around the dining-room table, celebrating Michael's return home. It had been several months since I had seen my youngest son, Sean. He was starkly older, as if my passing had released him to grow up. Sean's disposition had come from Connie; he would never suffer the dark bouts that I had passed on to Michael. But despite our differences in temperament, Sean looked remarkably like me physically. He was now nearly as tall as his older brother, but lanky and healthy, an athlete full of energy and life as he sat at the kitchen table with his mother and brother, making it clear through his jokes that he loved Michael and welcomed him home.

I was surprised to see a fourth face at the table: Michael's friend, Adam Mullins, who had been such a stalwart friend while my son was at Holloway. Adam teased both my sons so expertly, it was clear that he was considered by all to be part of their family.

Connie had made veal chops and the smell of my once favorite dish was irresistible. I perched on a rickety antique chair passed down from Connie's great-grandmother and took in the sounds and smells of my family breaking bread together. I had been banned from the chair while alive for fear I would reduce it to matchsticks, and enjoyed the joke I now played on my wife. There's not much else to enjoy when you're dead.

Michael seemed brighter somehow, as if his spirit had been tarnished and now glowed with a new shine. His stay at Holloway, although cut short, had still done him a world of good. He had the promise of future therapy sessions with Miranda to get him through any dark days that might come and I could feel a determination in him to stay strong. He was giddy at being home and had a new appreciation for the care that Connie gave him after hearing the horror stories of the other kids on his ward. The smile he gave his mother, so rarely bestowed in the past year, made it plain that he was not the same boy who had entered Holloway ten days before.

I wonder how much having a friend like Adam had to do with Michael's recovery. I had not had many friends while growing up. My own father had been too violent and unpredictable to risk bringing someone else into the secret life of our broken family. Yet Adam Mullins was growing up in a similar situation and he had found a way to be a good friend to my son.

They, of course, talked of nothing but the murders at dinner, despite Connie's best attempts at introducing new topics. The mention of Darcy's name triggered the same ritual each time: either Michael or his friend Adam would say softly, as if to himself, ‘Man, I can't believe she's really gone,' and the other would nod their solemn agreement. But, like the kids they were, they also sought refuge from their sadness in enthusiastic speculation about who the killer – or his next victims – might be.

My youngest son Sean wanted to dwell on the possibility that his future stepfather, Cal, might be next in the unknown killer's sights. Connie looked scandalized and frightened each time he brought it up, and Michael finally kicked his brother under the table, inspiring Sean to return to the safer topic of the murder of strangers. Connie did not want to talk about such things at all; she wanted to forget the uncertainties that existed outside the safe home she had created for our sons. But the world was not going to let her forget. Just after dessert, the insistent buzz of the doorbell signaled that the world was coming to them.

Connie knew at once that the news was not good.

She folded her napkin and, without a word to the boys, walked to the foyer and looked out the front door. Maggie and Calvano stood on the doorstep,
my doorstep
, their faces frozen in that expressionless way every detective I have ever known had been taught to adopt when trying not to give anything away.

My spirits faltered. Was Michael involved in this somehow? Why else would Maggie and Calvano be here personally when there was so much else for them to be doing?

Connie had not been a cop's daughter, and then a cop's wife, without learning something about cops. She suspected the same things I did. She opened the door slowly, her mouth set in a determined line that signaled to Maggie and Calvano that they had better have a full grasp of Michael's constitutional rights before they even thought about setting a big toe inside her house.

Maggie recognized Connie as someone not to tangle with and, I like to think, wanted to show her respect as my widow. ‘We're here to talk to Adam Mullins,' Maggie said quickly. ‘His father said he would be here.'

‘You can't talk to him without a parent present,' Connie shot back. ‘He's a minor.'

‘His father has signed a waiver,' Maggie explained. ‘He's agreed to let us bring him in for questioning.'

You couldn't take the Italian out of Connie if you tried. The thought of someone caring so little about their own child that they would not bother to be present at a police interrogation pissed her off royally. She lit into Maggie and Calvano with both barrels blazing.

‘His father may have signed that waiver,' she lectured them, ‘but I'd like to know what Adam wants to do. And if he doesn't want to talk to you, he's not going to talk to you.'

She stared at Maggie with a fierce confidence she had inherited from her mother. Calvano took an instinctive step backward when he saw the look and Maggie took a very deep breath before she replied.

‘If Adam wants you to be present during the questioning,' Maggie said, ‘it's OK with us.' She cast a glance at Calvano, who was clearly so terrified of Connie that he was likely to agree to anything she said.

‘Don't I know you?' Connie asked Calvano suddenly. He shook his head rapidly and she peered at him suspiciously, but let it drop.

Yeah, she knew him all right. She had smacked him in the face once in front of four dozen other people for grabbing her ass at a Christmas party three years ago.
It was a good thing for Calvano she didn't remember him or he'd have gotten a fresh earful about it now.

‘I'll see what Adam says,' Connie said, her voice tight. She was not about to be mollified easily. She left Maggie and Calvano standing on the doorstep, but returned a moment later with Adam Mullins in tow. She gestured for them to come in, pointing grimly to the living room, which she kept impeccably clean in case of disasters like neighbors dropping by unexpectedly – or the police showing up on your doorstep.

It was a living room just like every other living room in our town, no worse off and no fancier than the rest. Maggie and Calvano relaxed in the familiarity of their surroundings. They'd both grown up in living rooms just like this one. Not even the plastic mudguard on the bottom of the couch threw them. They sat down, side-by-side, as if Connie was getting ready to interrogate them, instead of the other way around.

Adam sat uneasily on the edge of an armchair, where Connie could shoot him significant glances that the kid had no hope of ever interpreting. I had been at the receiving end of Connie's unspoken signals and, trust me, it was a loser's game.

It was her home and so it was her right: Connie decided to take charge. ‘Why are you here?' she challenged them.

Maggie never missed a beat. She had grown up among women just like Connie. ‘We are questioning anyone with a connection to Holloway who also has a connection to Darcy Swan,' she explained. ‘It's in connection with Darcy's murder. Since Adam is her ex-boyfriend, I need to talk to him.' Maggie's voice faltered as she spotted Sean and Michael spying on them from the hallway. ‘He's been at Holloway often visiting your son this past week, so that puts him in the group for questioning.'

‘It's OK,' Adam interrupted suddenly. The adults looked startled at his confidence. ‘I spoke to her before,' he told Connie. ‘I have something for her.' He retrieved his knapsack from the front hall and rummaged in it for a moment, pulling out some folded sheets of paper and handing them over to Maggie. ‘This is the list of Darcy's Facebook friends,' he explained. ‘There's only a couple I don't know and I think they might be from some online games she played a long time ago. I marked them for you.'

Calvano looked suspicious, but Maggie took the papers with a nod of thanks. ‘I appreciate that,' she said. ‘I thought you had forgotten.'

Adam sat down across from her again and looked more dignified than any of them. ‘I told you I wanted to help you,' he said. ‘I want whoever did this to Darcy to be caught.'

It was hard to read what Maggie thought of the boy. ‘Do you have any idea where her cell phone might be?' she asked him. ‘Apparently, it's a disposable one. She doesn't appear to have an account with any of the carriers in this area, and we have no evidence that it's been used since her . . .' Maggie's voice faltered.

Adam saved her from continuing. ‘She always used prepaid phones,' he explained. ‘And hid them from her mother, because she would take them and use up all the minutes. Did you ask her mother about it? Maybe she's been using it?'

‘We haven't been able to get in touch with her mother for the last few days,' Maggie said. ‘She's not returning our calls.'

‘Probably too busy giving media interviews about how horrible it is for her that Darcy was killed,' Michael interrupted angrily from the hallway.

Connie looked like she was getting ready to tear Michael a new one for interrupting, but Maggie was nonplussed. ‘Can I ask you some more questions today?' she asked Adam.

Connie interrupted. ‘If you ask him anything that I feel is inappropriate,' she warned her, ‘I'm going to tell him not to answer you. Understand?'

Maggie had decided not to take on Connie. ‘Understood,' she said.

‘I told you everything I knew when you came by my house the other day,' Adam said. I wondered if Maggie was as impressed as I was that Adam looked her directly in the eye when he talked to her. ‘You have to remember what my father is like. You know the kind of person he is. If I talk to you, he's not going to like it. He just said it was OK because he can't be bothered to put down his beer long enough to drive to the station to be with me.'

Maggie's eyes moved to the bruise on Adam's cheek, correctly guessing when it had been inflicted.

‘Look,' she said more kindly. ‘We just need your help. Whoever killed Darcy has a connection to Holloway. I can't tell you why we think that, or how we know it, but trust me. It's true. I don't think you had anything to do with her death, but you were the only person we've heard of so far who really knew her well. You might be the only one who can lead us to her killer. Who can help us figure out what her connection to Holloway was.'

I think even Connie believed Maggie was sincere and was ready to let Adam talk more freely. But, as usual, Calvano missed the undercurrents in the room and displayed all the tact of a rogue elephant in the middle of a rampage. ‘Your father says you're having a lot of trouble at school,' Calvano said to Adam in a challenging voice. ‘What's all that about?'

‘That's not true!' Michael interrupted. The comment made him angry enough to drop the pretense of hiding. He entered the living room and was indignant. ‘Adam does great in school. He's won a whole lot of writing contests and he gets really good grades. He even tutors me in English.'

‘Then why is he a year older than you but in the same grade?' Calvano asked. I did not like the fact that Calvano had done enough background work on my son to know he and Adam were in the same grade. And then it occurred to me that both Maggie and Calvano had to know that Michael, too, was one of the few people in town who had ties to both Darcy and Holloway.