face I had never truly known, because that face had already grown weary with disappointment and self-sabotage by the time we met in the academy.
It scared me. How could he sleep in this hovel with the proof of what he had squandered so close at hand? It reminded me of how capricious life could be.
But what I found inside Danny’s closet scared me even more—because it was all about me. There, thrown haphazardly on a cheap folding TV table, I discovered myself in a dozen different poses, through all stages of adult life, my fall from youth to middle age and, finally, death, chron icled in color and black-and-white. There were photographs of me aligned across every inch of its surface, as a man might align his cards when playing solitaire. There I was with Danny, clinking beers in toast, surrounded by the tiny patch of verdant grass of his old yard. There I was with my kids at a local pool. One photo showed Connie and me on our wedding day, Danny among the groomsmen, looking uncomfortable but cheery in his tuxedo. Newspaper clippings of my death were neatly stacked in one corner of the table, near a red candle placed inside a tall glass tube decorated with a painting of the Virgin Mary. The candle had burned halfway down before the flame had flickered out. It was the kind of candle now sold in every corner store in America, a tradition brought up from Mexico to honor the dead and ward off evil spirits.
The closet was a shrine—an altar to my memory.
Why? Danny and I had been partners for most of our careers only because we’d had to be. Our friendship had been the first things to go when we’d embraced alcohol and hangovers and weariness and shame in our lives, neither one of us much caring, both of us knowing that there was no real friendship to lose anyway. Tethered together as partners, we’d endured our last years with little emotion and no devotion. Certainly nothing to warrant this kind of display.
What could it all mean—and what would Maggie think if she saw it? I could not see it with a stranger’s eyes. It was impossible to shake my certainty that Danny had been indifferent to me in life or my skepticism that he had mourned me after death. But would she see it as a sign of his loyalty instead? Would she feel more kindly toward him?
Or would she see what I now saw, as clearly as I could see the disintegration of my life in the photos before me: either Danny’s mind was going or Danny felt guilty about something.
Chapter 28
Maggie was still sitting outside Danny’s apartment in her car, watching for a sign that he might be inside. She was using the time to make phone calls and had worked her way up to Gonzales, judging by the tone of her voice.
“No, sir. He’s not at home and he didn’t show up for work yet.” She was silent. “I am well aware of that.” She hesitated. “Sir, we have a problem. He may be interfering with the Hayes case. I think he’s trying to prove I’m wrong about Daniels being innocent.” She flushed and took a deep breath. Was she actually going to lie to Gonzales? She did: “Nothing major. But he’s been contacting witnesses. It worries me.” She never told him about the Double Deuce, but she was thinking about the night before. “By the way, sir, I thought Bobby Daniels was getting out today. They tell me he was released yesterday afternoon . . . Yes, I understand. But was there anyone there to lend him support? I would have been glad to be there.” She frowned. “I’m well aware of the consequences. That’s why I keep out of the limelight.”
I don’t think Gonzales got the jab. She sighed and filled him in on Alan Hayes. “He’s not come home, either. The wife claims she has no idea where he is. We may need to keep teams on his house around the clock. I don’t think he will come home, though.” She hesitated. “I think he has another place somewhere else. We’re processing the evidence now. We may find something that leads us to him.”
Gonzales was obviously issuing a string of commands on what to do about Alan Hayes next, but he had angered Maggie with his excuses for not letting her know when Daniels would be released—the clipped way she promised