Angel of the Dark

“Most of the time he was behind me. I don’t know. Stocky, I guess. Not tall, but he was certainly strong. I fought, and he hit me. He said if I didn’t let him keep doing it, he would hurt Andrew. So I stopped fighting.” Tears streamed down her swollen cheeks.

“Where was your husband at this time? Did he try to help you? To raise the alarm?”

“He…” A look of confusion came over her face. She glanced at Lyle Renalto, but he looked away. “I don’t know where Andrew was. I didn’t see him. On the bed, maybe? I don’t know.”

“It’s all right,” said Danny, sensing her anxiety levels rising. “Go on. You stopped fighting.”

“Yes. He asked me for the combination of our safe and I gave it to him. Then he raped me again. When he’d finished, he knocked me out a second time. When I came to…the first thing I remember is you, Detective.”

She looked Danny in the eye and he felt his stomach lurch, promptly forgetting his next question. Lyle Renalto smoothly took advantage of the silence.

“Conchita, the Jakeses’ housekeeper, told me that all Angela’s jewelry was taken and a number of valuable miniatures. Is that correct?”

Before Danny could respond that he wasn’t in the habit of leaking sensitive information about a murder inquiry to “family friends,” Angela blurted out angrily, “I don’t care about the damn jewelry! Andrew’s dead! I loved my husband, Detective.”

“I’m sure you did, Mrs. Jakes.”

“Please find the animal who did this.”

Danny cast his mind back to last night’s crime scene: the blood-soaked floor, the old man’s all-but-severed head, the disgusting, obscene scratches on Angela Jakes’s thighs, buttocks and breasts.

Animal was the right word.

THERE WAS NO SIGN OF THE pretty nurse outside Angela Jakes’s room. As Danny stood waiting for the elevator, Lyle Renalto oiled up to him. “You don’t have a very high opinion of attorneys, do you, Detective?”

The lawyer’s tone had switched from hostile to ingratiating. Danny preferred hostile. Nevertheless, it was an unusually perceptive comment.

“What makes you think that, Mr. Renalto?”

Lyle smiled. “Your face. Unless, of course, it’s just me, personally, whom you dislike.”

Danny said nothing. Lyle went on.

“You’re not alone, you know. My father hated lawyers with a passion. He was crushingly disappointed when I graduated law school. I come from a seafaring family, you see. As far as Pa was concerned, it was the United States Naval Academy or nothing.”

Danny thought, Why’s he telling me this?

The elevator arrived. Danny stepped inside and pressed G but Lyle stuck an arm out to hold the doors. His film-star features hardened and his cat’s eyes flashed in warning. “Angela Jakes is a close friend of mine. I won’t have you hounding her.”

Danny lost his temper. “This is a murder inquiry, Mr. Renalto, not a game of twenty questions. Mrs. Jakes is my key witness. In fact right now, she and her maid are my only witnesses.”

“Angela didn’t see the man. She told you that already.”

Danny frowned. “I thought Mr. Jakes was a close friend of yours too. I’d have thought you’d want us to find his killer?”

“Of course I do,” snapped Lyle.

“Or perhaps you weren’t quite as close to Andrew Jakes as you were to his wife. Is that it?”

This seemed to amuse Lyle Renalto. “For a detective, I must say you’re a pretty poor judge of people. You think Angel and I are lovers?”

“Are you?”

The attorney smirked. “No.”

Danny desperately wanted to believe him.

“This is a triple felony, Mr. Renalto,” he said, removing the attorney’s arm from the elevator door. “Rape, robbery and murder. I strongly suggest you do not attempt to obstruct my investigation by coming between me and the witness.”