It all led back to Danny.

I waited with Maggie while she changed her tire, then I headed back to town with her, trying to figure out what to do next along the way. We passed the Double Deuce, its neon lights blinking out their promise of TEQUILA SHOTS and COYOTE UGLY GIRLS, though the women who danced on the bar of the Double Deuce had more in common with ugly than with girls. A job as a dancer there was one step above being a prostitute, and I mean that pretty much literally. The moment most of them stepped down from the bar, they became one. I knew because I’d visited there often on the job, tracking down murders, busting dealers, and most often, dragging reluctant witnesses to court on time. It was a favorite hangout of recidivists and criminals smart enough not to be caught. So much so that I had avoided it on my days off, on the theory that it was mixing business with pleasure.

Still, it was just the sort of place where Danny would be, nursing his wounds at Maggie’s rejection, or cooking up some drunken scheme to get what he was after. I needed to find out what it was that he was after.

When she stopped at the intersection near the Double Deuce, I slipped from Maggie’s car and searched the parking lot of the bar. There was no sign of Danny’s car, and the place was way too far out of town for anyone to be there without one. I stuck my head in the door, just in case, following a blousy bottle blonde in too-tight jeans inside after she was done doing a biker and a couple lines of coke in the backseat of her car. As the double doors opened, I was hit with a wave of bad air, badasses, bad smells, and the sounds of Bad Company over the sound system.

But no Danny.

I returned to the parking lot just as a group of bikers staggered out, ready to weave their way home or to the next bar. What the hell. It had been a long day. I’d hitch a ride back to town on a chopper and go from there.

When a behemoth with forearms the size of hams climbed on a souped-up Harley and revved his engine, I didn’t hesitate. I clambered on behind him, wrapped my arms around his black leather jacket, and admired the death skull embroidered on its back. He pulled out of the parking lot and took off like a rocket. It was a pleasant ride to town, full of lights whooshing past, sudden sounds that would buzz like angry bees and be long gone, far behind us, before I could recognize them, and a cold wind that swept away my worries. I tipped my head back and let the biker’s excessive speed sweep me away. I was filled with wonder at the night.

I enjoyed my ride so much that I was reluctant to leave my big friend behind by the time we reached the center of town. But all things—both good and bad—must come to an end. I climbed down and patted my oblivious host on his massive shoulders in thanks. He unwittingly belched a rumbling reply. I headed for Shenanigan’s as it was only a few blocks away. If Danny was anywhere, it was probably there. It was his comfort zone, the next best thing to passing out at your own kitchen table.

Danny was not there among the tired room of regulars, but I discovered his car parked on a side street. The sight of it sitting alone beneath a streetlight gave me a bad feeling. There was only one other place nearby where he’d be.

It was past midnight, but obsession doesn’t keep regular hours. I fully expected to see Danny hiding beneath the big tree growing partway down the block near my house, spying on Connie and the kids. But I was wrong. Danny had not been content with spying. And I knew it when I was still almost a block away. Connie’s voice carried for miles when she was mad.

She was standing on the front porch, barefoot and wearing a bathrobe. And she was up in Danny’s grill well and good. I was beside her in seconds. What the hell did Danny think he was doing? Enough was enough.

But Connie didn’t need my help, which was fortunate since there was nothing I could have done. “Get the hell off my property,” she yelled at Danny. “Get the hell off my porch and don’t come back.”

“Come on, Connie,” Danny wheedled, too drunk to recognize the warning signs: Connie’s hands were balled up into fists. A wise man stepped back when he saw that. “I just wanted to take a look around.”

“I’m going to tell you this one more time, you drunken, pathetic piece of Irish-Italian crap,” Connie answered. I knew she was just warming up. I recognized the tone: Danny was going to take the brunt for his own drunken nonsense, plus the heat for all the years Connie had had to put up with mine and, before me, with her father’s.

“Kevin never brought his work home,” she yelled at him. “He barely did it at the station, for chrissakes, and I’ve never heard of the Hayes case. He never said a word to me about it, which you should know, since you were his partner and he probably never said a damn word to you about anything, either. Number two, I am not about to let you into my house, where my children sleep, either in your current condition or in the unlikely event you are ever sober again. Especially just so you can root around in search of pieces of paper you think you might find. Because those notes do not exist, and you know why else? Because you are never going to be a part of my life again after this moment. I’m done. You’re done. Now go.”

Danny blinked and took a step back, confused by her fury or cowed by her strength. I’m not sure it mattered which. The point was that he was paralyzed.

“Don’t think I don’t know that you’re up to something,” Connie warned him. “Since when do you give a shit about anything you do? I don’t for a moment believe you give a crap about this Hayes case. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you’re not going to find it in my house. And if you ever come back—ever, Danny—I will call the commander personally and I will tell him that you are harassing me, and I guarantee you that you will be out on your ass before you can sneeze. You got it?”

Danny still could not pull it together enough to react, but Connie did not require validation from him. She marched inside the house, slamming the door in Danny’s face.

That’s my girl, I thought proudly to myself. Or, rather, that was my girl.

Danny stood on the edge of the porch, teetering precariously backward toward the steps, looking as if he was not quite sure where he was. Man, he was loaded. Danny was off the charts. I was horrified at the thought he might actually get in his car and drive—I’d have company in the afterlife then for sure—but before Danny could reach his car, a black SUV pulled up beside him. The window rolled down. Alan Hayes was waiting behind the wheel.

“She wouldn’t let me in,” Danny slurred miserably. “I couldn’t find out a thing.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Hayes said soothingly. He opened the passenger door. “There was probably nothing to find anyway. Get in. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and some breakfast.”

Now, technically, the invitation wasn’t for me. But I was damned if I’d leave them now. I wanted to know how long they’d been buddies. I climbed into the backseat and it was as clean as the day it had rolled off the assembly line, though the effect was marred somewhat by the reek that came from Danny, a mixture of alcohol, sweat, and cheap aftershave.

“What happened?” Hayes asked Danny as he headed for a busy franchise-lined road a few blocks away near the highway. That made me happy. I loved coffee shops and that strip was full of them. With any luck, they would order coffee and doughnuts and I could at least sit there and smell the combination.

Danny had not answered Hayes and seemed to have forgotten there had even been a question. He was even farther gone than I’d thought.

But Hayes was as determined as Connie. If he had to sober Danny up first, so be it, but he’d get what he wanted before the night was through. He pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s and led Danny inside to a booth, where he left him slumped in drunken contentment before leaving to wash his hands. I can’t say I blamed him. Danny pulled the ambience of the joint way down, and that was tough to do without breaking the law.

I glanced around at the weary patrons scattered around the dining room. At this hour, in this block, it was mostly filled with hookers taking a break, highway drivers fueling up on coffee, an occasional trucker overloading on cheap eats, and college kids trying to find the right combination of food and caffeine to keep them going all night.

There was usually a cop or two among the mix, but tonight there were just two detectives: one drunk and one dead. We made quite the pair.

I had to choose where to sit. I could either endure Danny’s reek, or I could sit next to Hayes and be bathed in the despair that had started to overwhelm me whenever I was near him. I decided to take a seat in the empty booth adjacent to theirs, where we’d be separated by little more than a half-wall divider. When Hayes returned from the washroom, he stood for a moment staring down at a near-slumbering Danny. Hayes was wearing a gray golf shirt and a pair of charcoal gray pants, both so precisely ironed they looked fresh from the rack. He had no expression on his face, nor could I discern a trace of his emotions. He simply stared, his unnaturally dark eyes taking in every detail of Danny, noting his rumpled clothes and stained shirt, the unwashed hair lying in limp strands across his ruddy skull, the unmatched socks, the class ring where a wedding band would be worn. His eyes flickered over Danny’s greasy all-weather coat, folded haphazardly beside my old partner, and then he shook his head lightly, as if to wake himself from a trance, and pulled a handkerchief from a pants pocket. Wiping the seat down with it, he sat across from Danny and said loudly, “Detective Bonaventura.”

Danny sat up straight, startled, recognized Hayes, and pretended to have been alert the entire time. It was a sad ritual and fooled no one but Danny. But he needed to do it anyway. “Yes?” Danny asked. “How was the restroom?”

Hayes hesitated, peering at Danny over the menu. “Fine, thank you.”

The waitress arrived and it was clear she had seen Hayes wipe down the booth. It had offended her. She was a black woman with an elaborate ringlet hairdo and she gave Hayes a contemptuous look. I was surprised. I felt a flare of anger in Hayes so swift and so strong it was as if he had raised a hot poker and was preparing to swing. He reeled his fury back in and ignored the woman as she produced a grimy bar cloth, then insisted on scrubbing the tabletop vigorously while Danny stared on, befuddled.

Hayes lowered the menu so that only his black eyes showed above it. He stared at the waitress and she froze, having seen something in his eyes she recognized. “That will be fine, thank you,” Hayes said in a clipped voice. The waitress, in a hurry now to get away, slipped the cloth into her apron pocket and pulled out a pad and pen. She did not look at Hayes again.

After ordering black coffee for himself, Hayes waited, not speaking, while Danny wolfed down a huge platter of hash browns, eggs, and sausages, then drained two cups of coffee. I guess walking out on dinner with Maggie had put a crimp in his eating schedule. I couldn’t imagine what his guts were like these days. It was a wonder he was still walking around. His body was poisoned hourly by what he put into it. “That hit the spot,” he said when he was done. He patted his belly, gulped down a quart-sized glass of cola, and announced he needed to drain his lizard.

Hayes did not so much as twitch a face muscle during the entire spectacle. I thought of a spider, sitting immobile in its web, watching the death struggle of a fly, neither curious nor triumphant, just existing until it was time to feed.

Still, the low-class nature of the entire scene irritated Hayes. That’s the downside of getting other people to do your dirty work, I thought to myself. Good help is so hard to find. While he waited for Danny to come back from the bathroom, Hayes stacked Danny’s dirty dishes in a pile and slid them as far away as he could. The waitress swooped down from nowhere, collected the dishes without a word, and was gone within seconds. Hayes did not say anything, but the vein near the corner of his right eye began to pulse. That waitress was getting to him. I knew why. He could not control her.

I wondered what time the waitress got off work.

I wondered if she would make it home.

“Hello, young man.” A creaky voice interrupted my thoughts.

I looked up and was both startled and horrified to find an old lady wrapped in a ragged purple sweater talking directly to me. I was too stunned to answer.

“You just getting off your shift? Catch any bad guys tonight?” Her laugh was wheezy from disuse as she cackled at her joke.

I looked around wildly, wondering if other people could see me. Hayes was staring at the old woman in disgust, the vein in his temple throbbing.

The waitress was bearing down on the old lady. “Now, now, Mrs. Palermo. Go back to your table. The man doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“I’m not talking to the one in the fancy clothes,” the old lady announced indignantly, disdaining Hayes. “I’m talking to him.” She pointed right to me and I fought the urge to slide beneath the table.

Danny had returned and was staring at the old lady. “She’s nuts,” he said to the waitress. “She’s pointing at an empty table.”

“I can see that,” the waitress snapped at him.

“This young man deserves coffee and doughnuts, Elvira,” the old lady insisted, tapping my tabletop with her cane. “He’s had a hard night. I can tell just by looking at him. You bring him some coffee and doughnuts.” The old lady smiled at me. “I understand. I was married to a police officer once. He worked this very neighborhood.”

“Yeah?” Danny asked automatically. “What was his name? Maybe I knew him.”

“Sit down,” Hayes ordered abruptly. Danny sat.

“I’ll bring him a cup of coffee and a doughnut,” the waitress promised. “if you go back to your table and leave these nice men alone.”

The old lady looked Alan Hayes and Danny over. “Nice men?” she said. “I don’t think so.” She swiveled on her cane and hobbled away, but allowed the waitress to install her in a small booth near the front door.

To my surprise, the waitress returned with a cup of coffee and two jelly doughnuts. She sat them down on the table right in front of me. When I breathed in the heavenly aromas, I could remember exactly what they tasted like after a long shift, that first sip of fresh coffee, both bitter and smooth at the same time, that first bite of jelly doughnut when the powdery dough would split open in my mouth and the jelly inside would spill out over my taste buds.

Hayes and Danny were gaping at the waitress.

“You want her coming over here all night?” the waitress demanded. “Or do you want your privacy? Because if you want your privacy, a cup of coffee and two doughnuts sitting on an empty tabletop will not bother you.” She stood, hands on her hips, daring them to argue.

“Fine,” Hayes said, his voice as cold and stiff as steel. “Put it on my tab.”

I laughed while the waitress, almost gloating from her triumph, refilled their coffee and departed. But I stopped laughing at what Hayes said as soon as he and Danny were alone.

“Detective Bonaventura,” Hayes began, as if to remind Danny who he was. “You understand my viewpoint, I presume?”

“Hell, yeah,” Danny said. “That’s why I’m here. It’s an outrage.”

“It is indeed,” Hayes agreed eagerly, making it seem as if Danny were setting the agenda. “To lose my daughter and then to watch as her killer goes free? How much can you ask a father to take?”

“I tried to tell them,” Danny explained. “But wait until you get to be my age. People look right through you. They talk right around you. It’s like you’re not even there.”

Tell it to the marines, buddy. Try being dead. And invisible.

Hayes, who probably was Danny’s age and then some, but allowed himself to be overlooked by no one, nodded sympathetically at Danny’s comment. “To whom do you attribute this misguided new investigation?” he asked. “Could they have a grudge against you or be threatened by you?”

“Oh, sure,” Danny agreed eagerly. “It’s Gonzales. He’s commander now, but I knew him back when he was just a wetback kid from the projects who was too little to play football.” Any authority this statement might have had was ruined when Danny glanced around nervously to see if anyone had overheard, his eyes lingering on a trio of muscled Mexican construction workers a few booths over.

“You have something on Gonzales then?” Hayes asked a little too eagerly.

“No, no, no, nothing like that.” Danny folded his hands importantly on the table. “I just know what he’s really like. One look and he knows that I know he’s scared inside. He’s not who he pretends to be, you know what I’m saying?”

Hayes, the master of not being who he pretended to be, nodded. “And the girl?” he asked, his voice lingering on the last word contemptuously.

“Ah, Maggie’s okay,” Danny said. “But she’s kind of a legacy hack, you know what I mean?”

“Enlighten me,” Hayes asked, perplexed. Oh, he was smooth.

“Her father was a cop and his father before him and on and on, so the department kind of had to hire her and now her way up the ladder is greased slicker than goose shit, whether she does the job or not.”

Danny had always mangled his metaphors. I used to find it funny.

“And does she do the job?” Hayes asked. “Has she found out anything new about the case to make her think Daniels is innocent?”

“Who knows? She won’t give me the time of day. Too stuck-up.”

“What exactly is she doing?” Hayes asked.

Danny shrugged. “My guess is she does just enough to keep the brass off her back, like the rest of us. She’s just shuffling papers. Thinks setting Daniels free makes her a hero. She might have something going on with Gonzalez on the side, though. He sure as hell seems to have a thing for her.”

It was strange. I knew every word was nonsense. I knew it was the vile, drunken ramblings of an unhappy soul. And yet, a flash of jealousy rose in me at the thought of Gonzales and Maggie together. How quickly ugliness could take over your soul, I realized, against all reason and all vigilance.

“Is that so?” Hayes said, as if disinterested. But he had sensed a possible advantage and I could see his dark eyes glitter at the thought of having something to hold over Maggie and Gonzales.

Danny shrugged. “Could be. He’s given the green light to get the Daniels kid out of prison. On what basis, I ask you?” Danny’s voice rose. His indignation had been awakened. “That was a clean case. You know how hard me and my partner worked on it. We followed every rule, we crossed the i’s and dotted our t’s.” He did not notice his mistake and Hayes did not correct him. “I mean, we looked into every possibility. Worked day and night. You know how it was. We felt your pain. We weren’t going to rest until we found the killer. Now they’re calling it all into question. All that work we did. It’s bullshit is what it is.”

“And now they’re releasing Bobby Daniels from prison,” Hayes said sadly.

Danny nodded. “He’s going to get off scot-free. Probably get a zillion-dollar settlement to boot.”

“Do you know when they’re letting him go?” Hayes asked. His whole body stiffened and the vein in his temple bulged. We had come to the point of the charade, I realized. He wanted to know when and where to find Daniels.

Danny did not notice the change in Hayes. “Not yet. There’s a lot of paperwork you got to do first.” His tone was patronizing, as if Hayes could not possibly understand the intricacies of police work. Foolish, foolish Danny.

“But you will know when it happens?” Hayes emphasized the “you” as if Danny were the most important man in the department.

“Oh, sure,” Danny said, sitting up straight. “I know everything.”

“It’s so sad when the justice system fails like this,” Hayes said. His voice was somber, as if he were speaking of a great tragedy. “It’s just so wrong when the elaborate system we have constructed to bring about true justice fails and something unspeakable like this is allowed to occur.”

Danny nodded, distracted by his need for more sugar. Hayes fell silent when the waitress appeared to bring Danny a refill of cola. Sensing it irritated Hayes, she took longer than was necessary, then leaned over their table, across the wall divider, and pretended to refill my coffee cup.

Hayes glared at her.

The waitress shrugged. She was enjoying needling the affluent white man in his too-clean clothes. “She’s still here.” The waitress nodded toward the old lady beaming at us from her booth by the door. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

Hayes ignored her and she left, smiling to herself.

I was starting to like that Elvira.

“I can’t help but reflect on the flaws in the system when something like this happens,” Hayes said smoothly.

“Like what?” Danny asked, not really interested. He was eyeing the garishly topped pies circling endlessly in a glass display case near the cash register.

“Like loopholes. Like lawyers out to make a name for themselves. Like detectives who want to use their sex to get ahead without doing any of the real work. Like killers going free to satisfy people’s ambitions.”

His voice had taken on a harsh edge. It was a masterful performance.

Unless he truly meant it.

I wasn’t sure which scenario scared me the most.

“Life’s a bitch and then she dies,” Danny agreed.

“Do you know what I think?” Hayes asked, throwing his napkin on the table in disgust. “I think when something like this happens, good men have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.”

Danny looked blank. “What do you mean?”

“When good men stand by and do nothing, bad men prevail,” Hayes explained.

“You said that?” Danny looked confused. “It sounds like a famous saying or something.”

Hayes let a flicker of disgust cross his face, “Yes, someone famous said it. I can’t quite recall whom. But that is not the point.” He leaned closer to Danny. “The point is that good men cannot simply stand by when something likes this happens. Good men take matters into their own hands.”

“Anything else?”

Danny and Hayes both jumped and I had to give the waitress credit. She had stepped on Hayes as thoroughly as a housewife crushing a cockroach to oblivion on her kitchen floor.

“I’m out of here,” she explained pleasantly. “You can pay the cashier.”

Hayes turned his head slowly to glare at her. The hatred in his dark eyes was naked and unmistakable.

She smiled back at him, as if not noticing his hostility, but her tone when she spoke held just enough of a victorious edge to zing Hayes one more time for the road. “Boyfriend’s picking me up in two minutes,” she explained. “This is my last shift ever here. And you’re my last customers ever here. I’m on to greener pastures. So don’t worry about a tip. You two were such good sports about Mrs. Palermo. She’s a regular, you know. We care about her.”

As she walked away, I felt a tidal wave of uncontrolled, entitled fury rise in Hayes, feed on its own power, and swell to a near-breaking point.

“Service in this place can get a little dicey,” Danny offered obliviously.

Hayes slid his black eyes to Danny and glared, but said nothing.

Danny looked uncomfortable. “I’d, uh, offer to get the check, but . . .”

“Of course not,” Hayes said, his control returning. “I invited you. I insist on picking up the tab, as they say.” When he reached for the bill, his long, tapered hands were as graceful as a pianist’s. His nails had been freshly manicured.

“What were you saying?” Danny asked. He wanted to be sure he’d earned his free meal, I thought wryly, remembering how much he loved his freebies.

“I was saying that we need to make sure that Bobby Daniels and that partner of yours don’t make a mockery of the justice system,” Hayes said. “I can only imagine Detective Gunn’s triumph should that happen. How powerful she will feel. Who does she think she is?” he asked. “Well, I’ll tell you. She thinks she gets to call the shots. She thinks she gets to come in late to the game, then act as coach. She thinks she gets to make a fool out of you, to cast aspersions on your work. She thinks she gets to decide it all.”

Danny was staring at Hayes. “I never thought of it that way,” he said.

“Well, you should,” Hayes explained. “I offer the waitress as a case in point. Women spend their entire lives trying to tear men down. That’s what they’re wired to do. They’re weak and they’re helpless and they’re angry at us for being the stronger sex. So they spend their lives trying to destroy us.”

When Danny looked doubtful, Hayes stepped up the pressure. “Just look at your own life. I’m betting there’s a woman there somewhere. Someone who used you, took your money, enjoyed her own life without a thought to getting a job, then left you when things got tough and you needed her. She walked away and manipulated the courts and the system to bleed you dry. Am I right?”

Danny had grown still and his eyes were far away. A silence descended. I could hear the clock on the wall ticking. I could hear Danny’s heart beating. The air had grown thin and every object in the room seemed to appear in ultra-relief. My hearing became acute. I could understand conversations on the other side of the room, I could hear the clink of pans in the kitchen.

It was as if the entire universe was swirling around the eye of a hurricane, and I sat right in the middle of that eye, watching a man weigh his soul. His very salvation balanced on the edge of a razor and the rest of his life depended on what he now chose.

“Detective Bonaventura?” Hayes asked, his voice sounding kind. “I apologize sincerely. Did I hit a nerve?”

Danny shook his head as if to free himself from the past. “No. I was just thinking.” He looked up at Hayes. “I think I have a way to find out when Bobby Daniels gets released from prison.”

“Excellent.” When Hayes smiled, a darkness descended over me. Danny had chosen. Danny was lost. “Absolutely excellent.”