I hobbled into the alley, glancing down at my bloodied leg and swearing loudly. Robby backed away from me until he bumped into the scalloped steel door of an old garage. He pulled something from his pocket and fumbled with it.
“Stay away from me!” he said, waving his hand at me. It took me a moment to realize that he was holding a small knife.
I stopped and considered drawing my Glock, which was still in my shoulder holster. I’m licensed to own it and Arizona law allows private citizens to carry a concealed weapon. And though I hadn’t been on the job in some time, I still felt more comfortable with a weapon at the ready. In this case though, I figured I’d learn more from Robby if I got him calmed down.
“Put the knife away, Robby. You don’t want to get hurt.”
“I said stay away!”
I started walking toward him again. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”
In a way I hoped he would try to cut me. My leg was aching and I was itching for an excuse to kick the crap out of him.
“I’m smarter than you think. I know that you guys want to nail me for dealing, especially now that Claudia’s dead.” His eyes were darting from side to side, searching for any way out of the alley. He might well have been desperate enough to attack me.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not trying to pin anything on anyone.”
“Bullshit, cop!”
“I’m no cop.” He started to argue, but I raised a finger to silence him. “I was when I busted you, but I was kicked off the force a while back.”
“Yeah, right. What for?”
I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I beat a perp to death.”
His eyes widened.
“Put the knife away, Robby. I just want to talk. I’m a PI now. A private investigator,” I added, seeing his puzzled expression. “I’m doing a little work for the Deegans, trying to figure out what happened to their daughter.”
Fear and uncertainty chased each other across his features.
“The cops are after me, though, right?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you. They know you didn’t kill her. But they also know that you deal, and that Claudia had drugs with her when she died. Lots of the Blind Angel victims did,” I added, eyeing him as I spoke the words.
Robby seemed to sag. The hand holding the knife fell to his side. “Shit,” he muttered, eyes on the ground. I’m not sure that he heard my last remark. “I didn’t do anything.”
“No? What about Jessie Tyler?”
His gaze snapped back to mine. “That was you today.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Throw another spell at me and I’ll break your neck.”
“The Deegans, the Tylers. I guess business has been good.”
“Did you know Claudia well?”
He glanced around again, still searching for some way out. At the same time, he let out a short breathless laugh. “Yeah, I knew Claud. She and I were a thing once.”
“That right?”
Robby raised his chin, eyeing me. “You don’t believe me.”
I wasn’t certain that I did. It’s not like I thought girls would find Robby unattractive. He had a friendly face, shaggy dark hair, big brown eyes-the kind of down-and-out good looks that some girls like. But Claudia Deegan had been a beauty, and with her name and money she could have had any guy she wanted.
“Sure I do.”
“No, you don’t. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t either. I know who Claud was, before she became the woman I knew. If she’d been right with her family, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. I understand that, you know? I think she saw me as a way of getting at her old man. But I didn’t mind.” He stared past me; his expression had softened. “I. . I liked her. A lot.”
Maybe I did believe him. “What was she on?”
He met my gaze again, narrowing his eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he gave a little shake of his head. “Everything. You name it, she was into it. Spark, X, crystal, coke. It’s not like she was short on money, you know?”
“Did she buy her stuff from you?”
“Is that what the Deegans told you? Them and that boyfriend of hers?”
“What boyfriend?”
“I don’t remember his first name. Last name is Ruiz. He’s some rich Mexican kid. But they all had it in for me. Blamed me for all of Claud’s problems, which is bullshit. I mean, sure, we did some stuff, you know? But it’s not like she’d never used before she started hanging out with me. It’s not like she was a damn saint or something.”
“Did you have any contact with the Deegans?” I asked. “Conversations, letters, emails?”
“Not her old man. He’s not around that much, and anyway, his people probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near someone like me.”
I was sure Robby had that right.
“But Claud’s brother came around once right after we broke up. Told me stay away from her. Threatened to have me thrown in jail if I ever went near her again.”
“So did you stay away from her after that?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Couldn’t. I went to that freakin’ protest because I thought she’d like me more if I was into one of her causes, you know?” He laughed, sounding bitter. “That worked out great. She barely noticed me, and I wound up getting busted along with the rest of them.”
“Did she buy her drugs from you?”
He chewed his lip, seeming to weigh whether it was safe to tell me the truth. “Yeah,” he said at length. “I sold her Spark, coke, X. I don’t deal meth anymore, so if she had any on her, it wasn’t from me. But the rest probably was.”
“What about the others?”
“What others?” Robby asked, growing wary.
“The other Blind Angel murder victims. Did you sell to any of them?”
“I thought you were working for the Deegans.”
“I am. I’m trying to figure out why Claudia is dead. And if I can learn something about the other murders, too, all the better.”
His gaze slid away. “Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about that.”
He was shutting down on me, so I turned the conversation back to Claudia, hoping that he’d open up again.
“Do you find it odd that this guy would go for Claudia? I mean, she’s probably the most famous girl in Arizona, right?”
“He probably didn’t recognize her,” Robby said. “I mean, have you seen Claudia recently?”
“I saw her a little while ago,” I said. “I’ve just come from the Medical Examiner’s building.”
He gaped at me, his face going white. “No shit?”
“I swear it.”
Robby swallowed. “Well. . well, then, you know. She changed. A lot. She lost weight-got really thin, you know? Unhealthy. And she dyed her hair black, used lots of eyeliner-went Goth. Actually it was a pretty cool look for her. It was like she was trying to be someone else, leave the blonde princess behind. That’s what she called herself sometimes, when she was feeling especially anti-family, you know? Anyway, that was the weird thing about Claud. On the one hand she acted like none of the rules applied to her, you know? She thought she could get away with stuff because of who she was. And you just know that she got that from her old man, from being a Deegan. But at the same time, she was always trying to be someone else.” He shook his head again. “Poor Claud.”
I didn’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I also didn’t doubt that the guy loved her. Robby wasn’t the brightest bulb on Broadway, but he’d given some thought to what made Claudia Deegan tick. It almost made me feel bad for him. Still, he hadn’t answered my question, and I couldn’t leave him alone until he did.
“What about the others, Robby? Did they buy from you, too?”
His gaze wandered away again. “I told you, I’ve got nothing to say about that.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, and I’ll be sure to mention it to my buddies at the PPD.”
“You think I remember everyone who’s ever bought from me? You’re crazy! And I don’t know the names of all the people this guy’s killed.”
“You’d remember if you sold to someone and heard a day or two later that she’d turned up dead. In fact, I think you do remember. And I think it’s happened more than once.”