“She gets knocked up at an orgy and Barnett says keep it? That’s pretty damn tolerant, Alex.”

“You’re probably right. But in any event, now that we know the truth about Daney’s character, we can’t ignore him for Rand. He hasn’t been directing us to Malley out of civic obligation.”

He gave the bear claw another try. Grimaced and put it aside.

I drank coffee. It sloshed in my stomach. Burned like drain cleaner when my thoughts uncoiled. “Daney fed us another tidbit he shouldn’t know about. Malley riding the rodeo. He claims Sydney Weider told him and maybe she did. But I read all the court documents and it never came up. In fact, my sense was Weider wasn’t paying any sort of attention to the Malleys. Daney’s playing us, Milo. And screwing up, in typical psychopath fashion, because he’s too clever for his own good.”

“Daney did Rand,” he said, looking off into the distance. “No reason why it doesn’t fit.”

“Something else: Whether or not the boys knew Lara or Barnett is an open question. But one of them sure knew Daney. Troy was a budding psychopath. Daney’s the fully-developed version. Put them together and there’s no question who’d pull the strings.”

“Daney got Troy to do Kristal?”

“And now he’ll help you ‘solve’ the case.”

“Man,” he said, “you are full of evil thoughts.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He said, “Guess it’s like those firebugs who return to the scene and rescue people. Or one of those Munchausen mommies racing to resuscitate their kids.”

“It fits Daney’s act,” I said. “Image is important to him. Outwardly, he’s a man of faith, a tireless youth worker, caretaker of downtrodden teens. While you were ordering, he spun off a bunch of psychobabble, told me he and Cherish chose adolescents to foster because no one else wanted them. If I didn’t know better, I’d have bought it. Meanwhile, he’s cheating the government, seducing minors, and impregnating them intentionally. Getting off on having the pregnancies terminated and trying to snag a share of the fees.”

“What a prince . . . at least when the DNA match comes through, we’ve got him for kiddie rape on Valerie Quezada.” He shook his head. “One reinterview and he’s our new Hitler. What does that say for Cherish’s guilt or innocence?”

“Don’t know. Their relationship’s a big question mark.”

“I can buy Daney as a scumbag,” he said. “But speaking of questions marks, what was his motive to have Kristal murdered?”

“Kristal survived,” I said.

“Survived what?”

“Survived period. Daney has a thing about his progeny living and breathing.”

“Daney was Kristal’s daddy? Where’d that come from?”