Angel Among Us (9 page)

‘Good. Use that against him,' Gonzales said. ‘Now what can you tell me about Danny Gallagher?'

‘The priest picked him up at the hospital and tried to take him home, but the media has the front entrance to his farm blocked,' Maggie said.

‘The priest wants us to put a couple of men on it, so that Danny can go home,' Calvano added. ‘He's afraid Danny is going to lose it if he can't be there, waiting for his wife to show.'

‘Done,' Gonzales said. ‘What do you think about the probability he killed her?'

‘I don't think he did it,' Maggie said.

‘I don't either,' Calvano added reluctantly.

‘Got any other leads to go on?' Gonzales asked.

Maggie left it to Calvano to explain. ‘It turns out Arcelia Gallagher counsels illegal immigrants on the sly,' Calvano said. He looked a bit uncomfortable. He was acutely aware he was talking about people who shared an ethnic background with the commander and he did not want to offend him.

Gonzales looked thoughtful. ‘That fits in with what I'm hearing,' he said.

‘What do you mean?' Maggie asked.

‘We set up a hotline for tips,' Gonzales explained, ignoring their groans. Both Maggie and Calvano knew that a hotline would bring in nothing but false leads to waste their time. ‘We set up a Spanish-language hotline,' Gonzales added, looking pleased at his cleverness. ‘We've gotten a couple of calls from people who say Arcelia Gallagher visited the Delmonte House several times over the past week to talk to some illegals working out there.'

‘Seriously?' Maggie asked. ‘Are these credible reports?'

Gonzales nodded. ‘My guess is that there are more than a few illegal immigrants working at the Delmonte House. It's entirely possible she went out there to talk to someone.'

‘We should question the owners and the staff just in case,' Calvano suggested eagerly.

‘This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Dakota Wylie lives there, would it Adrian?' Maggie's tone was dry. She, like everyone else in town, knew that the Delmonte House had been bought by a once hugely popular television star named Enrique Romero who, now ageing, had bought it for a new wife nearly four decades younger than he was. He had married her at the peak of her popularity as the star of a television series featuring, from what I had been able to tell when watching the show from a bar stool, a lot of scantily clad girls running around a college campus. When the two stars had married a little over a year ago, they had landed on the cover of every magazine devoted to entertainment on both sides of the Atlantic. The husband, Enrique Romero, liked to call himself the first mainstream Latin leading man in America, which did not explain why he had married the whitest leading woman in America. He had purchased the Delmonte House, a massive mansion on the edge of our town, as a gift to his wife, he claimed, because she was a simple country girl at heart and he knew she would never be happy in a place like Beverly Hills. It had to be a bunch of crap, but it had proved a boon for my community when tourists started arriving, hoping for a glimpse of either star, toting their hungry children and credit cards with them.

As for the owners of the Delmonte House before the two stars, they had to have been ecstatic. It had been the scene of a society murder in 1926 and a less highbrow one in the late sixties, when two vagrants sleeping in an apple orchard got in a fight over a bottle of cheap wine. Two murders in one mansion had been enough to win the Delmonte House haunted house status ever since. It had even ended up on some cheesy paranormal television show featuring a lot of black lights and night goggles, but not a lot of ghosts, and I ought to know. Eventually, the mansion had fallen into disarray. Supposedly, the ageing Latin heart-throb had restored it to its former glory for his young wife.

Calvano, of course, was mostly interested in the glory of the young wife. Dakota Wylie had broken into television at the age of fourteen and, within three years, was an inescapable presence on Most Beautiful lists, little girl's tee shirts and all the other crap that people obsess about instead of looking at their own lives. She was probably close to thirty years old now, meaning her incredible body and heart-stopping face would be showing little signs of wear. I had given up any sort of interest in the opposite sex long before I died, my libido doused by too many nights at the bar, but there was probably not a man in America who had not fantasized about Dakota Wylie at least once.

‘I'm just trying to do my job,' Calvano told Maggie, a smile spreading over his face.

‘Then go do it,' Gonzales ordered them. He looked at his watch. ‘The husband claims he has some meeting in Los Angeles tomorrow night so if you don't talk to him first thing in the morning, he'll be gone. I want you two to talk to him personally. I don't trust him. He's too slick and I don't like the way he rode into town thinking he could buy us all with his money.'

Uh oh. Gonzales had a habit of feuding with any powerful man that might rival his standing as top Latino dog. It figures he would see Enrique Romero as a rival, even though the guy was one million times more famous than Gonzales.

‘If the media gets wind of this, it is going to be insane,' Maggie predicted. ‘If there are any leaks . . .'

‘I'll handle the leaks,' Gonzales said. ‘I know what I'm doing. You two go home, get some sleep and get out there by eight tomorrow morning. Goodnight.'

Maggie and Calvano were both smart enough to leave without another word.

I
had always wondered why Calvano had so many girlfriends. There were certain neighborhoods in town where I could not go without running into him having dinner with some divorcée who saw him as her next husband. He had also long since gone through the available roster of women on the force – with the exception of Maggie, who was off-limits as his partner, not to mention because of her good sense. But, from what I could tell, he never stayed with a woman for more than two months.

I'd always figured he just couldn't find the right woman, or he'd had a terrifying mother waiting to pounce on anyone he brought home to meet her. But listening to him go on and on about Dakota Wylie on the way to the Delmonte House the next morning made me think that Calvano was one of those annoying people who always thinks they can do better, the kind of person who is always shopping for a newer girlfriend or wife, even when the one he has is right there on his arm.

I had never been like that, though I had been casually faithless and indifferent, which was arguably worse. But even in my darkest hours, part of me understood that I had hit pay dirt when I married Connie. She had been the perfect woman for me. I'd just been the wrong man for her.

For Calvano, Dakota Wylie was clearly the perfect woman, never mind that the Dakota Wylie he knew was a fictional creation of some sitcom writer. He filled Maggie in on the reasons why she was perfect for most of the ride to the Delmonte House. Finally, Maggie had enough.

‘Will you shut up about her for one minute?' she complained. ‘You are going to have to interrogate her and it would be good if you managed to do it without drooling.'

Calvano had the decency to look embarrassed, but he still did not shut up. ‘Oh, is that how it's going to be? Let's see how calm and collected you are when you meet her husband.'

‘Seriously?' Maggie asked. ‘That guy is, what, seventy years old? It's gross enough that he had to marry someone forty years younger than him. I feel certain I can resist his charms.'

‘Don't be so sure. Enrique Romero is a legend. He looks better than men one third his age. Not me, of course.' Calvano smiled. ‘But when you're born a ladies' man, you die a ladies' man.'

‘You're going to die a ladies' man a lot sooner than you planned if you don't shut up,' Maggie promised him.

Since Maggie drove like a bat out of hell, we soon reached the entrance to the Delmonte House. It was located west of town and was the only structure you could see in either direction for a good half mile. It was only two stories high, but it had that long sprawling architecture that reminds you of Thomas Jefferson's home, with lots of white columns and unbelievably green lawns that stretched everywhere you could see. Because it was June, flowers bloomed everywhere, their fragrance filling the air.

It was quite a sight. As the wrought-iron bars of the front gate swung inward to admit us, I gaped at the sheer perfection of the grounds and house. It had definitely been restored to its former glory. Someone had money, a lot of money.

And yet, as we approached the front door to the mansion itself, an odd sensation overcame me. I felt deeply unhappy, without warning, followed by something close to fear. I found, quite suddenly, that I did not want to go any closer.

I hung back, waiting as Maggie and Calvano rang the doorbell and an honest-to-god butler admitted them after checking their credentials. He seemed at least as old as the house.

Yes, I realized as the atmosphere from inside the house rolled over me, something dark and unhappy lived inside the house. Something I did not understand, except to know that I did not want to meet it.

As if to answer my thoughts, the hands of a framed antique compass decorating one foyer wall began to spin wildly in its casing. I stared at it, certain I was not imagining the movement of the tiny metal hands inside the shadow box. No one else noticed it at all. They were too busy being lectured by the butler on how not to mar the marble floors.

I was not the only invisible company at that house.

I left the foyer and followed Maggie and Calvano down a hallway past opulent rooms filled with furniture that cost more per piece than my entire yearly salary had been. French windows stretched from floor to ceiling everywhere and light bounced off the marble and polished wood floors. Still, I felt filled with darkness. So much unhappiness and then – like a lightning flash before my eyes – I caught a glimpse of arms flailing in blood, screaming, hatred blooming. Pain hit me so intensely I could not move.

Just like that, it was gone.

I tried to regain my thoughts. I did not want to be in the house. It was not safe for me. Something lived in this house, something in my plane. I could not shake my feeling of fear.

It took the old butler forever to lead Maggie and Calvano to a library so perfect it might as well have been a movie set. Perhaps it was. Three men sat in various leather chairs and on leather couches, watching a fourth man who was standing with his back to the others, gazing out a window at the landscaped grounds. They all turned as one to stare when the butler entered the room and introduced Maggie and Calvano.

A tall man with a deep tan and silver hair stepped forward. ‘I'm Philip Stein, Mr Romero's agent and manager,' he said. He shook Calvano's hand and gave Maggie the once-over. She didn't even blink. She took out her badge and flashed it at him. When the man recovered and held his hand out to her, she ignored it and turned to the rest of the room.

‘Which one of you is Enrique Romero?' she asked. The men look startled but the man at the window whirled around with theatrical poise. He may have been in his early seventies, but he looked more like fifty to me. He wasn't particularly tall and he was starting to put on weight, but he had the classically handsome face of a Latin heart-throb and lots of hair for the ladies to run their fingers through. He, too, had a deep tan, although he was slightly orange and, I suspected, sprayed it on to avoid chancing more wrinkles on his obviously surgically enhanced face. His skin was pulled unnaturally taut and his mouth stretched a hair too wide.

‘I'm Enrique Romero,' the man said. He had better manners than his agent and strode over to where Maggie stood. He took her hands in his and held them a little too long.

If he thought that was going to charm Maggie, he was barking up the wrong tree. She wasted no time getting to the point. ‘Who are these other two men?' she asked, glancing at a pair of nearly identically dressed middle-aged men perched on the couch.

‘Those are Mr Romero's lawyers,' the agent said. He was impervious to Maggie's glare.

‘I would prefer that Mr Romero speak for himself,' Maggie said calmly. ‘Why don't we sit over there?' She nodded toward two chairs flanking a chess table that looked straight out of a high-end catalog. The pieces were made of real ebony and ivory, I suspected, but I was certain no one had ever actually played a game with them.

‘Mr Romero would like counsel present when he is questioned,' the agent said quickly.

‘Fine,' Maggie conceded. ‘You can all watch, if it floats your boat.'

Calvano kept looking around the library, as if hoping to discover Dakota Wylie lurking in a corner. All he would've found was me. She was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if some of the unhappiness I felt in the house came from her.

Enrique Romero had not become a Hollywood star by being stupid. He pulled a chair out for Maggie to sit in and gestured for his legal team to keep their distance. Sitting across from her, he leaned over with a look of absolute openness and asked, ‘What exactly is this about? My lawyers received a phone call from someone whom I understand is high up in local law enforcement asking for my cooperation. Of course, I am glad to give it. But I am unsure as to what this is all about.'

He was a good actor, I gave him that. Or maybe he wasn't acting at all. It was hard to tell. I think he was one of those people who is always on stage, so there's no way to know whether they are being genuine or not.

Maggie had three photos of Arcelia Gallagher ready to show him. She spread them out across the game board.

‘A beautiful woman,' Enrique Romero said. He looked up at Maggie, waiting.

‘She's missing. She disappeared on the way to work yesterday and she's nine months pregnant. People say they saw her driving out here, to your house, last week. We're sure the information is accurate.'