done?” Tony asked as he tugged hopefully on one of his beard’s pigtails.
“I appreciate the offer,” Maggie said sincerely. “But I’ll be on the clock.”
“No problem,” Tony said magnanimously. “And if someone don’t cooperate, you just tell them Big Tony will kick their ass until they do.”
Maggie smiled. “Thank you, Tony. I appreciate that. Would you mind sending Barney over? Nicely?”
Tony’s idea of sending Barney over nicely was to nearly launch him in the air, but Barney did not seem to take of fense at Tony’s enthusiasm. He had something important to tell Maggie.
“It was a cop,” he said before he’d even sat down.
Maggie froze. A sadness filled her. I think she finally put it together with what the two biker chicks had told her and knew who he was going to name before he’d said a word. “A cop?” she asked quietly.
Barney held up a hand. “God as my witness. I know you aren’t going to want to believe me, but it was a cop.” He had a massive gut that was splitting the sides of his black leather vest and his bald head gleamed first pink and then blue in the neon glare.
“Who was a cop?” Maggie asked. “The man with the knife?”
“The dude who started it all.”
“Tell me from the beginning,” Maggie said. Her appreciation of the people she was questioning and their quirks had disappeared. She felt weary and resigned, truly sad to hear another officer had been involved. And not, I realized, the least bit doubtful. She believed the biker.
“I walked in the door a couple minutes before it all happened,” Barney explained. “It’s my momma’s birthday and we had a little party for her so I got a late start. I was ready to catch up with my drinking and I’d heard about Jeanna.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about Jeanna, too,” Maggie said, her heart not really in it. But she was too good of a cop not to try and establish rapport.
“Well, then, you know she’s worth laying down for a drink or two. I come in the door and there he is: the biggest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. Sitting right there at the bar, next to that poor guy.” Barney nodded toward Daniels, who had closed his eyes and seemed to have fallen asleep.
“You recognized a police officer? When you walked in?” Maggie asked carefully. “With that guy?”
“Hell yeah, I did,” Barney said. “Asshole planted an eight ball on me twelve years ago. I did hard time for it, too. Missed my boy growing up. They pinned a whole operation on me. I’ll never forget his face.”
“What’s his name?” Maggie asked, though I think she already knew it.
Barney looked a little shamefaced. “I said I’d never forget his face. But as it so happens, his name does escape me.”
“Describe him,” Maggie asked.
“About five foot ten; maybe fifty pounds overweight; head the shape of a sixteen-pound bowling ball with ginger-colored hair kind of plastered over it so he can tell himself no one notices he’s going bald; big, fat bulb of a nose from hitting the bottle; a sweaty face filled with freckles; bad suit the color of dog shit; smells like cheap-ass aftershave.”
Maggie stared at him. So did I. He had just described Danny to a tee and there was no mistaking it. Danny was the one. And I knew he had probably planted the coke on good ole Barney twelve years before, too. That interested me almost as much as the fact that Danny had been at the Double Deuce an hour before. Because, while Danny and I had been sloppy and stupid and drunk and useless, we had never been dirty cops. At least I never had. I’d never planted a scrap of evidence in my life. That was the one thing I would not do, and I’d never known Danny to, either.
Now? I started thinking back to our drug busts, going over our cases. Danny could have been crooked the whole time. I may not have known him at all.
“Did you see anyone else you recognized?” Maggie asked. Her eyes were sad. She didn’t want Danny to be a part of this.
Barney looked apologetic. “Just the usual assholes who jump into every fight that comes along.”
“Okay,” Maggie said. The news had made her tired. She handed Barney his twenty wearily and he took it, looking a little ashamed.
“I shouldn’t take this from you,” he said to her. “You’re okay.”