“About what?”
“Quoting me as the source,” said Daney. He bit his lip. “There’s a whole lot of history here.”
“Something to do with eight years ago?”
Daney pulled at his cheek again. Created a lopsided frown.
“I’ll be as discreet as possible, sir,” said Milo.
“I know you will…” Daney turned as a truck loaded with bags of fertilizer drove onto the lot. Dark blue. A stick-on sign said Hernandez Landscaping. Two mustachioed guys in dusty jeans and baseball caps got out and entered the doughnut stand.
Daney said, “See what I mean, pickups are all over. I’m sure it’s no big deal.”
“Give it a shot, anyway, Mr. Daney. For Rand’s sake.”
Daney sighed. “Okay…” Another sigh. “Barnett Malley- Kristal Malley’s father drives a dark pickup. Or at least he used to.”
“Eight years ago?” said Milo.
“No, no, more recently. Two years ago. That’s when I ran into him at a True Value hardware store not far from here. I was buying parts to fix a garbage disposal and he was loading up on tools. I noticed him right away but he didn’t see me. I tried to avoid him but we encountered each other at the register. I let him go ahead of me, watched him leave and get into his truck. A black pickup.”
“You two talk?” said Milo.
“I wanted to,” said Daney. “Wanted to tell him I could never really understand his pain but that I’d prayed for his daughter. Wanted to let him know that just because I’d reached out to Troy and Rand didn’t mean I didn’t understand his tragedy. But he gave me a look that said ‘Don’t go there.’ ”
He hugged himself.
“Hostile,” I said.
“More than that, Doctor.”
“How much more?” said Milo.
“His eyes,” said Daney. “Pure hatred.”
We watched the white Jeep drive off.
Milo said, “Barnett Malley. It has now officially gotten messy. So how would an ambush fit the time frame- and the call to you an hour and a half after he left the Daneys’?”
“Rand could’ve lied to the Daneys about going to the construction site.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he had a meeting before the one with me and didn’t want them to know about it. With Barnett Malley.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I told you he sounded troubled. If guilt was weighing him down and he was trying to prove he was a good person, who better to ask for forgiveness than Malley?”
“Daney said he was freaked out by being watched.”
“But the next morning he looked better. Maybe he’d somehow made contact with Malley, decided to take positive action. State law requires notification of victims’ families when a felon’s released, so Malley would’ve known Rand was out. What if Malley kept an eye on Rand, confronted him face-to-face during Rand’s first trip to the site at eight a.m.? They agreed to meet later and Rand invented the appointment with the construction supervisor as cover.”
“Not an ambush,” he said. “He gets in Malley’s truck voluntarily, then it goes bad.”
“Rand was impressionable, not very smart, eager for absolution. If Malley came across friendly- forgiving- Rand would’ve been eager to buy it.”
“Okay, let’s think this through. Rand hooks up with Malley around five p.m., Malley drives him into the city, drops him off at the mall, and Rand calls you to set up another meeting? Why, Alex?”
First time using the victim’s first name. Some kind of transition had taken place.
I said, “Don’t know. Unless, Rand and Malley had made peace and Rand decided to keep the process going.”
He rubbed his face vigorously, as if washing without water. “Not much of a peace if Malley shot him. What, Malley dropped him off, then picked him up again?”
“Maybe Malley had more to talk about.”
“The two of them rode around together schmoozing about the bad old days, Malley decided to off him rather than let him eat pizza with you? Even if we can explain all that, the big question remains: If this is all about payback, why would Malley wait eight years?”
“Maybe he was willing to wait for both boys to get out but a C.Y.A. gangbanger beat him to Troy.”
“So he bides his time on Rand.” He drank coffee. “According to Daney, Malley was still heated up two years ago.”
“Malley wanted the death penalty,” I said. “Some wounds never heal.”
“Theory, theory, theory. So, now what? I intrude on a couple who lost their kid in the worst possible way because hubby gave Daney a dirty look two years ago and he drives a black pickup?”
“It could be touchy,” I said.
“It could require some serious psychological sensitivity.”
I took a bite of Danish. A few minutes ago it had tasted great. Now it was deep-fried dust.
“Do I have to spell it out, Alex? I’d rather you do it and I’ll watch.”
“You’re not worried my presence will disrupt?”
“The defense saw you as pro-prosecution, so maybe the Malleys will remember you fondly for the same reason.”
“No reason for them to remember me at all,” I said. “Never met them.”
“Really?”
“There was no reason to.” Funny how defensive that sounded.
“Well,” he said, “now there’s a reason.”
CHAPTER 15
Milo phoned DMV for current licenses and registrations on Barnett and Lara Malley.
Nothing for her. Barnett Melton Malley had a Soledad Canyon address, out in Antelope Valley.
“The birth date fits,” he said. “One vehicle, a ten-year-old Ford pickup. Black at the time of registration.”
“Soledad’s forty, fifty miles from Van Nuys,” I said. “After what they went through, I can see them wanting to get out of the city. Rural area like that, Lara would need to drive, so why isn’t she licensed?”
“They’re not living together and she moved out of state?”
“A tragedy like that can drive people apart.”
“I can think of a giant wedge,” he said. “Kristal was snatched from under her nose. Maybe hubby blamed her.”
“Or,” I said, “she blamed herself.”
As we returned to the city, Sean Binchy called in. Van Nuys Division had no record of any call from the Daneys about Rand’s disappearance.
“No big surprise,” said Milo. “He wasn’t officially missing, so it wasn’t filed.”
“What’s the current status of your felonious friend theory?”
“Have I abandoned it completely because Barnett Malley owns a black truck? Like Daney said, plenty of pickups in the Valley. But Malley had good reason to hate Rand. I’d be an idiot to ignore him.”
“When were you planning on visiting him?”
“I was thinking tomorrow,” he said. “Late enough to avoid the morning rush but early enough not to get tied up coming back. First, I’m gonna try to find out where he works. If I get lucky and it’s somewhere closer, I’ll call you.”
He scribbled in his notepad, returned it to his pocket. “Or even luckier, some mitigating factor will emerge. Like an ironclad alibi for Malley.”
“You don’t want it to be him,” I said.
“Hey,” he said. “How about lunch? I’m thinking tandoori lamb.”
We stopped at the station first, where he cleared his messages and ran Barnett Malley through NCIC and the other criminal databases and came up empty. Same for Lara Malley.
I stayed on my feet, expecting we’d soon leave for Café Moghul. But he just sat there, eyes closed, passing the phone from one hand to the other until he called the Hall of Records downtown and asked for a clerk who owed him a favor. It took awhile to get through but once he connected, the conversation was brief. When he hung up, he looked weary.