Angel of Darkness by Katy Munger

female patients came up again and so they transferred him out of the long-term unit about a month ago and put him in the hardcore unit. No women there.’
    â€˜Which would have put him in daily contact with Otis Parker,’ Gonzales pointed out.
    â€˜That’s true, sir,’ Maggie said. ‘But there was instant animosity between the two, according to all other staff members, and I am talking about from day one. I don’t think it was an act. I think the two men hated each other. It’s possible they were working together, but I think it’s more likely that Vincent D’Amato found something out about Otis Parker and was killed because of it.’
    â€˜Tell me more about how Vincent D’Amato’s body was staged,’ Gonzales asked. I knew he was just fishing for a good story he could tell his golfing buddies at the country club.
    Maggie shifted uneasily in her chair. ‘You know that Road Runner cartoon? And the way Wiley Coyote looks after he zooms off the edge of a cliff and lands on the canyon floor below? That’s how D’Amato looked.’ She looked a little embarrassed. I had never thought of Maggie being young enough to watch cartoons.
    â€˜And . . .’ Gonzales encouraged her, certain there had to be more to the theory than that.
    Calvano did his best to save her. ‘And Otis Parker has a Road Runner tattoo on his ass,’ he said, trying his best to look dignified.
    Maggie gave him a look that would have scorched leather, inspiring Calvano to hold both hands up in an exasperated gesture. ‘What? The guy has a Road Runner tattoo on his ass. I’ve seen photos of it. It looks like the Road Runner is racing right out of his—’
    â€˜I get the picture,’ Gonzales interrupted. ‘And all I can say is God help us all if this is what we have to go on.’ He looked at them in silence for a moment, with that way he had of making you feel like you were the most embarrassing, useless link in the entire department. Maggie wasn’t used to that look from him and squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. On the other hand, it bounced right off Calvano like he was coated in Teflon.
    Gonzales reached a decision. ‘I want the two of you to concentrate on solving the Darcy Swan murder, period. I’m going to put a separate team on Vincent D’Amato and see what they come up with. I don’t want the assumption that they are connected to drive the investigation and I see no evidence that they are connected. Once you find out who killed the girl, I want you to go back and take a look at the murders that put Otis Parker away and make absolutely sure that he was guilty. I do not want anyone else to know that this is what you’re doing. You are to report to me and me alone on it, got it?’
    Maggie was disappointed, but she was also a professional. ‘We won’t let you down,’ she managed to say as she rose to go. Calvano followed her lead, although he did not have a skirt to smooth down the way that Maggie did.
    At least not yet.

SIXTEEN
    â€˜ Y ou had to mention that tattoo on his ass,’ Maggie said to Calvano.
    â€˜You’re the one who brought up Wiley Coyote,’ he said defensively. ‘I was just trying to help. Besides, I got to use the word “ass” right to his face.’
    Maggie looked pissed, but after about fifteen seconds of silence, they both began to laugh. ‘Did you see the look on his face?’ she asked. They laughed even harder.
    It was one of those moments when a partnership crystallizes into something you know is going to endure. I was jealous I wasn’t a part of it and, yet, grateful I had been a witness to it.
    They were on their way to question Belinda Swan, Darcy’s mother. Apparently, she had been so upset at the news of her daughter’s death, that she had barely been able to march straight into the manager’s office, demand a week of family