Angel of Darkness by Katy Munger Page A

leave, cause a scene about Walmart’s lack of insurance for funeral expenses, and then negotiated to be paid early for the next month, even though her paycheck was unlikely to put much of a dent in Darcy’s funeral home bill. She had then marched over to the women’s clothing section, selected a ruffled black dress with a plunging neckline, picked up a pair of matching black heels with sequins from the shoe department and walked right out the front door without paying for either item. No one tried to stop her. The manager had just shrugged and returned to his office, leaving Maggie and Calvano to watch her drive away. She was already dialing people on her cell phone. To her, the tragedy was not about her daughter. The tragedy was all about her.
    Maggie and Calvano discussed the strange scene on the way over to her house for a second interview. They did not seem to have much love for Belinda Swan, though neither thought that she’d had anything to do with her daughter’s death.
    What happened next would not change their poor opinion of her. When Maggie and Calvano arrived at her house, Darcy’s mother was sitting in her living room sucking down a beer while waiting for a news anchor to arrive to interview her about the tragic death of her daughter. She seemed giddy at the prospect of being on TV. I could feel any sympathy that Maggie or Calvano had for her evaporate. Me? I’d never felt any sympathy for her in the first place. I’d met many versions of Belinda Swan before, and I am ashamed to say that I had never been particularly sympathetic to any of them. She was overweight from too much booze and constant junk food and her brassy hair was far too harsh for her ruddy face. She was dressed in clothes both too short and too tight, and her heavy make-up only made her look more desperate. I wondered what she saw when she looked in the mirror each day. Did she see a woman beaten down by life or did she still see a pretty high school girl who’d once had hopes of a better life one day?
    Many women just like Belinda Swan had come into the station house when I was alive to complain that their live-in boyfriend had stolen their car, or given them a black eye, or raided their bank accounts. I wanted to feel sorry for them, I really did. But after a few trips out to their homes, and dropped charges of assault, and being turned on by complainant and abusers alike, the truth was that I stopped caring. I began to think of them as hamsters on the most unfortunate of wheels, repeating a cycle over and over without any real thought as to why they were doing it at all.
    I felt the same way about Belinda Swan, at least at first. She was defensive about being caught drinking and belligerent when Maggie asked her if they could sit and talk for a few minutes. ‘Only if you got the cash,’ she said defiantly, raising the can of Budweiser to her lips. ‘I’m out of Darcy’s paycheck now and we needed that money. If anyone talks to me, they have to pay.’
    I had a sudden fantasy of Maggie pulling out her gun and shooting the can of Budweiser right out of Belinda Swan’s hand, then maybe plugging her in the ass for good measure. But that was never going to happen and, besides, Calvano spared Maggie the trouble of putting her in her place. He smiled at Belinda Swan and sat a little bit too close to her on the couch. She immediately turned toward him and assessed him. He was several rungs up the ladder from her league and passed with flying colors. It appeared that Adrian Calvano was good for something.
    â€˜We just want to ask you a few questions about your daughter and her friends,’ Calvano explained. He leaned in even closer. ‘You deserve justice. She deserves justice. We want to make sure that her story has a final chapter. You know how the media loves a good ending.’
    The reminder that she could milk more money out of her daughter’s murder if it were solved