Angel of Darkness (25 page)

The room was silent, some wondering if something had happened to Belinda Swan and others telling themselves that she was holed up in a hotel room in New York City getting ready to be interviewed on some morning television show.

Michael shifted uncomfortably in his chair and I was not the only one who noticed. He opened his mouth, as if he were going to say something, then abruptly shut it again. Connie saw it all.

‘Christopher Michael Fahey,' she said in a deadly voice, ‘you better tell the detectives right now what you were about to say.'

‘
Mom
,' Michael said as he glared at his mother. ‘I wasn't going to say anything.'

‘Don't you dare lie to me,' Connie said. She moved her chair closer to Michael and I thought, for just an instant, that she might actually slap him. ‘That girl is dead and if you know anything that can help them, anything at all, you tell the detectives what it is right now. Or so help me God . . .' Her voice trailed off and she left the threat hanging in the air.

No one in the family had ever been able to figure out what she meant by ‘so help me God . . .' but then no one had been able to risk finding out, either. Michael was no exception.

‘I don't want you to think bad things about her,' Michael said quietly.

‘About who?' Maggie asked. ‘About Darcy?'

Michael nodded miserably.

Maggie's voice was kind. ‘Michael, there is nothing that Darcy could have done that would make me think badly of her. Whatever she did, she didn't deserve what happened to her and I would never, ever think that.'

Connie was not in the mood to coddle Michael. ‘Just spit it out, Christopher Michael Fahey,' she ordered him.

‘Darcy really needed money,' Michael mumbled. ‘She was having to give her mother money for rent all the time, so she wasn't saving enough to get out of town like she wanted to. The tips from the diner were pretty bad, so she was thinking about becoming a dancer.'

‘What kind of dancer?' Connie asked, beating Maggie to the punch.

‘An exotic dancer,' Michael whispered, ashamed. ‘There was this new club that opened up out on the highway and Darcy heard that the girls were making something like six hundred a night in tips just for dancing. She wasn't going to strip or give lap dances or anything like that.'

Oh, the innocence of youth.

‘Who knew about that?' Maggie asked. ‘Did her mother know? Did Adam know?'

Michael looked both stricken and a little proud. ‘I was the only one she told,' he said. ‘I used to call her and we would talk on the phone. She said she needed someone to talk to and she didn't want to lead Adam on, so she couldn't call him. She said I was her friend.'

‘What exactly did she tell you about her plans for dancing?' Maggie asked.

‘She said she was going to go out and talk to the owner of the club, and if it all worked out that she would be able to leave here and start over someplace else by summer. That she would only need to do it for a little while and she'd have enough to leave.'

‘Are you sure Adam didn't know about this?' Maggie asked him.

Michael nodded. ‘Adam had this picture of Darcy as the perfect person. He put her on one of those things, you know—'

‘A pedestal?' Calvano interrupted.

‘Yeah, one of those,' Michael said. ‘Darcy said it drove her crazy, that she felt like she always had to be perfect around Adam. He had built this imaginary world around himself where she was like a princess, and his father wasn't a mean old drunk and there were puppies and flowers and stuff like that everywhere. She said she couldn't bear to burst his bubble, so she didn't tell him about stuff like that.'

‘But she told you?' Connie asked grimly. With a mother's instinct, she had figured the same two things I had: one, that Michael had loved Darcy Swan as much as a fourteen-year-old boy can love anyone; and two, Darcy had somehow known that Michael was the kind of person a damsel in distress could turn to. I wasn't sure that signified much for his future love life. Connie was living proof that being a rescuer took its toll.

‘She trusted me,' Michael said. ‘She knew I wouldn't tell anyone.'

‘How did she find out about the dancing job?' Maggie asked. ‘Did she tell you that?'

‘I think she said someone who came into the diner told her.'

‘But no name for this person?' Maggie asked.

Michael shook his head.

‘What's this all about?' Connie asked Maggie. ‘You can't really think that Adam had anything to do with Darcy's death?'

‘He is still one of the few people to link Darcy to Holloway,' Maggie explained. ‘It's hard to get beyond that. I'm convinced Darcy's murder is linked to what is happening at Holloway and Adam is her only link.'

‘That's not true,' Connie said. ‘What about Adam's father?'

‘What about Adam's father?' Maggie and Calvano asked her simultaneously.

‘He works at Holloway,' Connie said. ‘Trust me, I know. I made a point of avoiding him every time I went there to see Michael.'

Maggie stared at Calvano pointedly.

‘He wasn't on the list of employees,' Calvano said. ‘I would have noticed his name.'

‘He's not an employee,' Connie explained. ‘He owns his own plumbing business. He's been working there for about six months now, I think.'

‘It's true,' Michael said, backing up his mother. ‘That's how Adam was able to get a ride home at night after seeing me. His father was getting off work.'

Maggie was staring at Calvano again.

‘There are a lot of people on the list of contractors,' Calvano said, defending himself. ‘And Gonzalez pulled all of my help on it because he thinks we have our suspect. I was trying to get through the list as fast as I could.'

‘Oh, God,' Maggie said, as if to herself. ‘This changes everything.'

‘So? Go arrest him,' Connie said, always the practical one. ‘Trust me, no one will be surprised to see that man behind bars.'

‘It's not that easy,' Maggie said.

‘Why not?' Connie asked. ‘You heard what Michael said. Adam's father was hitting on Darcy all the time and she thought he was a creep. You know what that means. You know what his father's temper is like.'

‘Adam has already been arrested for her murder,' Maggie explained.

‘That and a whole lot of other things,' Calvano added.

Connie looked as if someone had ripped her heart out and thrown it on the floor. ‘You've already arrested Adam Mullins?' she asked them in a near whisper. ‘Don't tell me you arrested him based on anything his father had to say.'

Maggie and Calvano were silent.

Connie was fighting back tears. ‘Are you telling me that you arrested a fifteen-year-old boy who has no one to stand up for him? Are you telling me that Adam is having to go through this all alone, that he is sitting in a cell somewhere all by himself, knowing he is accused of killing the girl he loved and that there is no one in his life left willing to come to his rescue?' Connie ran out of words. The silence in the room built.

‘When is he being arraigned?' Connie asked.

Maggie looked at her watch. ‘My guess is right now,' she said to Connie.

Connie stood. ‘Let's go, Michael,' she said. ‘Adam needs us.'

THIRTY-THREE

A
dam Mullins was as alone as he had ever been in his young life. He sat on the edge of the metal bench in a holding cell, the only occupant in a room designed for high-risk prisoners. He wore an electric security belt designed to allow the guards to shock him at any point during the transportation and courtroom process, a precaution reserved for those criminals who were considered as close to human monsters as you can get. The kid was dwarfed by the apparatus.

A few yards down the hallway from his cell, Gonzales stood arguing with a trio of other suited men about who would be taking Adam Mullins to his arraignment. I knew then that the Federals were going to take over, whether Gonzales liked it or not, that Adam Mullins had fallen into the no man's land of being considered a home-grown terrorist and would be placed under federal jurisdiction. All bets were now off. It was conceivable Adam could disappear within the hour and never be seen or heard from again. It had happened before.

If Adam realized this, he did not show it. He was lost in his own private despair. For fifteen years, Adam had struggled through a life that surely had not lived up to his expectations and had suffered one disappointment after the other. He had endured the blows of an abusive father, the horror of losing his mother and the need to take care of a grandmother dying before his eyes. Through it all, he had retained a poise remarkable for anyone, much less someone his age. But this final indignity, this being locked in a cage with some space-age torture device cinched around his middle, had proved too much for the kid. He was crying without making a sound, the tears flowing down his cheeks to stain his hands. Five years of being kicked in the teeth, without even a mother to console him, had finally claimed its toll. The kid could take it no longer.

I could not leave him there alone. I sat back against the concrete wall in a corner across from him and I asked myself why this kid should be asked to pay such a heavy price in life when people like Otis Parker were given every break.

The jail was noisy and overheated, and the catcalls and jeers of other prisoners rang from cell to cell. Adam heard none of it. Gonzales and the trio of well-suited Feds walked past the cell, looking in curiously at him, and Adam did not even notice.

They would be coming for him soon, I knew. They would not wait long with a case like this. They would move as fast as they could, so that no one had to linger too long to consider what it was they were actually doing. A guard came by in the middle of it, glanced in on him and walked on. No one wanted to witness his despair.

The kid cried in silence until he could cry no more. I wasn't sure what I could do. I did not think there was anything I could do.

Most remarkable to me was the utter lack of hatred in Adam Mullins. As badly as he had been treated by those he loved, he had not yet turned mean. I could feel no trace of hostility, no need for revenge, no desire to blame others for his troubles. I just felt a weariness from him, an overwhelming, bone-deep weariness and a desire for it all to be over.

I hoped he was on suicide watch.

Adam's breath began to slow and I felt him slip under into a quieter state of mind. I realized that he was meditating, that he was consciously trying to find peace in a deeper state. I wondered if he had learned that technique while in therapy after the death of his mother. Maybe this was how he had been able to maintain his remarkable calm as a young man.

Whatever it was, it worked. I felt a tranquility settle over me as the same feeling filled the cell. I felt the kid's sorrow start to lift. I felt a flicker of his spirit come alive.

That was when I realized that I was not alone in the cell with Adam.

There, standing in a corner across the room from me, was the figure of a tall woman with high cheekbones and a weary face. Her bony red hands and plain house dress were evidence that life had been hard on her. Her hair was pulled back in an indifferent bun and she wore neither jewelry nor any make-up. She was staring intently at Adam. I examined her face and saw traces of him in her features. He had her eyes, and those cheekbones had been passed on to him, too. I knew who she must be.

Adam's mother had come to him in his darkest hour, traversing who knows how many worlds to get there, and while I did not understand the form she took – she looked there, yet somehow not there, her body seemingly carved out of the air – I could feel her presence undeniably. She stood a few feet away from her son, radiating a warmth that I can only describe as golden and comforting in its power. I experienced every moment of it with Adam. It washed over him as he meditated and calmed his mind. It filled his being and healed his heart. It settled around him like a cloak. It gave him hope and the will to live.

‘You ready, kid?' The guard was back and he held a bulletproof vest in one hand. ‘I'm going to have to put this on you, and it's going to be tricky because of the belt.'

Adam stood, staring at the vest. ‘Do I really need to wear that?' he asked. His mother had faded away at the guard's arrival, but she had left him with new strength.

‘I think so, yeah. I think maybe you better.'

‘What happens after that?' Adam asked.

I don't think the guard liked what was being asked of him by Gonzales. I don't think he thought of Adam as a monster, the way Gonzales and the Feds seemed to. ‘After that, you get arraigned in court, kid,' he answered. ‘And I hope to God you have a good lawyer.'

I rode with Adam to court, squeezed in beside three guards who sat motionless and silent on the bench across from a shackled Adam. He was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit that covered the security belt and bulletproof vest, but made him look like a kid in a Halloween costume instead of a dangerous prisoner.

Adam was someplace far away. His body was there in the van, shackled to rings in the wall, but he wasn't there. I hoped he was someplace beautiful, and I hoped that wherever he was, his mother was there with him.

Word had leaked to the press, probably deliberately, that a Columbine-style shooting at a local high school had been thwarted and that there might be a connection to the recent murders in town. By the time Adam Mullins was pulled from the transport van, he had already been dehumanized and reduced to everyone's worst fear – a diabolical young villain, devoid of all morals and empathy, caught just in time, intent on random destruction of those more innocent than he. He was the perfect poster boy for those who feared the world changing around them as much as they feared getting old.

Me? I had not bought it as a cop and I sure didn't buy it now. I knew that the real villains were never as obvious as Adam Mullins, that they did not display their weapons neatly in lockers or leave blueprints to destruction on their computers for everyone to see. The real people to fear were the ones who spent a lifetime hiding behind others, reaping the benefits of their well-directed destruction. Beyond that, I could feel the terror in Adam Mullins – and no one could be that afraid without having some innocence left in them.