Forgotten Place

by LS Sygnet

  "I'd work traffic stops with you," he said. Johnny jerked his head to the long bench. "Get some rest. It's your turn to crash."

  "Horrible choice of words on a flight, Johnny." I winked once and slid out of my seat. Before I could find a comfortable position, Johnny appeared with blankets out of one of the storage bins. He draped two of them over me.

  "Warm enough?"

  "Thanks," I gripped his hand before he drifted away. "Thanks for everything, Johnny."

  It felt like I no sooner closed my eyes and the co-pilot was waking both Johnny and me for landing back in Darkwater Bay.

  The house was dark inside; outdoors, the front courtyard was bright, and Johnny's plainclothesmen kept careful watch over the property.

  "Are you as exhausted as I am?" Johnny parked the Expedition in the garage and engaged the remote control. "When this is over, I swear to God I'm gonna sleep for a solid week."

  "We should call the gang and see if they're still at Ireland's house. If they are, they could probably use extra eyes and hands."

  "Nonsense. If they need help, I'll go. You need to sleep."

  "I slept five hours."

  "Four," he grinned. "You ate nonstop for the first hour we were in the air."

  "If you go over there, I'm going with you. We had a deal, Orion. You're rubber, I'm glue. Remember? So if you want me home tucked into bed for the night, you're gonna have to be there too."

  "Then I guess we're going to bed."

  My stomach twisted into a pleasant knot.

  "I mean..."

  "I know what you meant, Johnny."

  "The guys probably worked their way through that house hours ago. It's like Levine said. If Datello really believed the place held some secret cache of evidence, it would've been torched long ago."

  "Then why try to kill Journey right after she decides not to sell the house?"

  Johnny stared off into space. "I don't know. Maybe Danny was afraid she's remember something if she decided to keep the place."

  "We're getting way too speculative." I climbed out of the front seat of the Expedition and loped slowly to the door. "You coming?"

  Johnny's voice floated over my shoulder from directly behind me. "What do you mean too speculative?"

  "We don't know that the house is part of this at all. David's right. If Datello was convinced something was there, it would've been gone ages ago. If he wasn't sure that Isabella didn't know a thing about her husband's work, she too would be dead. We have to consider that Journey would've met the same fate as her father if I hadn't interrupted. Waiting for an anniversary of Ireland's murder was probably for our benefit, to leave us scratching our heads and chasing our tails."

  He walked me to the door of my bedroom. "Don't give up. Let sleep clear your head and digest what we learned tonight. Even if this isn't the case that gives us Datello, we learned something important tonight, Doc. He's more vulnerable now that Marcos is being held without bail than he ever has before."

  "More vulnerable makes him more dangerous unfortunately. He's not going to go down without a fight, Johnny."

  He cupped my chin and stroked my lower lip with his thumb. "Why do you think I'm so determined to keep an eye on you, huh? I know he hates you for being disloyal to Rick. That's why I was so upset that you goaded him at Don's press conference Wednesday. He might be going down, but the way a guy like Datello looks at it, he's not going down alone. Promise me that you'll stay close, Doc."

  "Promise me that you'll stay close," I whispered. "He might hate me, Johnny, but I think if such a thing is possible, he hates you even more. Sister Agnes and all that."

  His head tilted, slowly dipped close to mine. I felt the warm puff of air caress my lips –

  "Oh you're back! I thought I heard –"

  Johnny jumped in the opposite direction I moved.

  "Crevan," he growled, "you scared us half to death."

  "Sorry," he grinned. "We're upstairs watching videos. Wanna come up? We'll fill you in on the search of the Ireland house."

  "Videos?"

  Crevan shrunk away from my irritated word. "It's not like we're taking a break, Helen. They're videos we found at the house. And it's more like we're fast forwarding through them rather than watching. Ned thought there might be more than birthdays and first communions and such mixed in the bunch."

  I thought about Isabella's last words before her disease took away her capacity for speech. Disk. David's disk. Could that have been the wrong word? Had she meant his cassette or video? I opened my mouth to ask, but Johnny gripped my arm firmly. "Go to bed, Helen. All of this will be here in the morning. You need to sleep."

  "What about you?"

  "I need it too. You can sleep in tomorrow. Amy says she doesn't see you on weekends."

  While I undressed and donned my soft, worn sweats for bed, I wondered if Johnny was upstairs filling in the blanks for Ned, Devlin and Crevan – and vice versa.

  Johnny. Now there was a dream worthy thought. Johnny who broke the law to offer me peace of mind. Johnny who lied to the FBI to protect me. Johnny who stormed past my defenses and threatened to force feed me if I didn't start taking care of myself.

  Johnny – who was about two milliseconds away from kissing me outside my bedroom door.

  For a smoker, Johnny never smelled like one, with fetid, stale breath that reeked of dirty ashtray. The scent of spices clung to him instead, even his breath. Sweet. Tempting. Alluring.

  I crawled under the covers and curled into a tight ball. What would've happened if Crevan hadn't interrupted? Would Johnny be in here with me now? I wondered if I had the strength to say no, to remind him of his new love interest.

  Guilt seeped in where warm feelings wrapped around what if and pillowed me with warm fantasies. Guilt. My old enemy. I drifted to sleep thankful for Crevan's inopportune interruption. The last thing I needed was to meet the mystery woman at this police gala with the knowledge that I led her man astray a few hours earlier.

  I understood why my thoughts produced a less than chipper mood in the morning. Johnny was quiet and irritable, even though he never said a word to express the mood. Crevan tiptoed around everyone. Ned focused on the bizarre number-pages I unearthed in Ireland's files. That was enough to make anyone cranky.

  Dev had a shadow all morning – waif-like Journey, who seemed far less secure with her female police guard than she had the strapping man who did all but smack her nose with the morning paper to get her to heel.

  The conversation about the case was a terse recitation of facts. Nothing of consequence was found in the house. Southerby had been a person the FBI knew well to be part of Marcos' organization. One step forward, two steps back. Our net gain had been less than the loss overall. Frustration bubbled over.

  Johnny planned to leave after lunch, allegedly to get ready for this stupid party Saturday night. Crevan was leaving too. Ned and Devlin planned to follow up on a couple more leads on the whereabouts of Riley Storm, still missing in action. After Johnny and Crevan left, Johnny absconding with my Expedition, to add insult to injury, I pulled my two detective brethren aside.

  "There's one more thing I need to do before we abandon ship for this stupid party tonight."

  "Does Johnny know about it?"

  "Ned, were you blind? He was in a rotten mood this morning. Every time I tried to talk to him, he had to go outside to smoke or take a phone call or update the governor or Chris. I don't know what the hell happened when you guys watched the Ireland home video collection, but it certainly put Johnny in a mood."

  Devlin frowned. "Johnny didn't come upstairs last night, Helen."

  "Regardless, I'd like to make a quick visit to Isabella Ireland's convalescent home this afternoon."

  "Why?" Ned said. "She can't talk to you, Helen."

  "Maybe not, but I'd like to talk to the staff of the facility anyway," I said. "I keep coming back to her paranoia that she and Journey were being stalked by someone."

  "You think it wasn't paranoia?" Devlin as
ked.

  "Somebody knew Journey's schedule well enough to know when they would catch her alone in that parking garage. How do we learn someone's schedule?"

  "Stalking," Ned said. "All right, you made your point. Let's get over to the old folks home now. I have a feeling if we're late for this soiree tonight, it's only gonna make somebody's mood worse."

  The Sisters of Mercy Convalescent Home was pretty much what I expected to find. The old brick structure was a sprawling single story nursing home, probably built sometime in the 1960s. Gardens and foliage outside the facility lent a certain charm that used to be synonymous with the phrase rest home. Religious iconography in the form of marble statues and crucifixes abounded outside the building.

  Inside wasn't much different. In a way, it reminded me of the interior of Dunhaven, dated beyond belief, but painted at least with soothing cream tones instead of institutional green.

  That was where all similarity stopped. It was far less tidy than Dunhaven had been.

  So much for the theory of cleanliness being next to godliness. The Sisters needed to discover the mercies of a good bottle of bleach. My nose revolted at the pungent odor of old urine. My eyes burned and teared up the deeper we moved into the bowels of the facility.

  Finally, we reached an ancient looking nursing station, Formica countertop-style desk and old burgundy carpeting buffering the outside high wall of the station. I brought my badge with me this time, and tapped it on the desk, interrupting the coffee break of two nurses dressed in dingy white and wearing caps – a nursing phenomenon I hadn't witnessed in all my career brushing shoulders with healthcare workers.

  "Can I help you?" one mumbled from behind her coffee cup.

  "Detectives Eriksson, Williams and Mackenzie, Darkwater Bay police. I need to see Isabella Ireland."

  "Izzy can't talk to you," the rotund nurse next to low talker behind the coffee cup said. Her pastry hung midway to her mouth. "She's demented and hasn't said a word in years."

  "Years?"

  "About a year and a half," the clearly more competent nurse said. "I'm Becky, the charge nurse. Brenda's right though, Mrs. Ireland is no longer able to speak, and visitors tend to upset her more than soothe. Do you have her daughter's permission to visit?"

  "Her daughter is currently in protective custody of the police," I said. "Surely you heard about the stabbing at MSUH on Monday."

  Becky's eyes widened. "That was Journey?"

  Ned nodded. "You can see why we need to make sure Mrs. Ireland is safe, whether she can speak to us or not."

  "She's currently living on our secured unit," Becky said. "Nobody but Journey comes to visit her. Oh, and Mr. Ireland calls a few times a year –"

  "Mr. Ireland?" I interrupted. "As in her husband David?" I quickly calculated Becky's age. Twenty three? Twenty four? The other one, Brenda looked to be about fifty years old, and certainly should've been aware of Isabella's history."

  "Well, that's what we call him. He's the second husband," Brenda said. "Bless his heart for not just dumping Izzy after she got sick."

  "This is important," I murmured. "When was the last time Mrs. Ireland's husband visited her?"

  "I don't recall ever seeing him here," Becky said. "Bren?"

  "Maybe three years ago, after Izzy first moved in. He's an older guy, silver hair, nice looking. He spent about two minutes with her before she started having one of her fits and he thought it would be best if he left. Since then, he's only called to check on her."

  "And he's never been back, not even with Journey?" I asked.

  Brenda frowned. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard Journey mention him at all."

  I glanced at Ned and Devlin. They looked as grim as I felt.

  "Brenda, how familiar are you with the history of Darkwater Bay?"

  "I don't get whatcha mean, detective." She tore off a hunk of jelly donut between her teeth and left a sprinkling of powdered sugar on her whiskered chin. "History in what way?"

  "Like what happened to Izzy's first husband sixteen years ago."

  Brenda grinned. "Why in the world would I remember what happened to some old guy when I was seven years old?"

  "Do either of you remember the last time this second husband of Mrs. Ireland called?" I asked.

  "Last Saturday," Becky said. "I told him she still isn't talking but that her outbursts aren't nearly as frequent as they used to be. He wanted to know when Journey last visited, and if Isabella got upset when she saw her daughter too. I said no, that Isabella is always real calm when Journey visits her."

  "I'd like to see her now, Becky."

  She hesitated. "I'm not so sure, detective. I mean, she gets really upset with people she doesn't know. We don't have the extra hands around on a Saturday to manage her if she gets agitated."

  "Detective Eriksson is also a psychologist," Devlin said. "I think she knows how to handle someone prone to agitation."

  Yes and no. It had been years since I'd dealt with patients suffering from dementia, but Devlin's reassurance seemed to sway Becky in favor of letting me visit. She led us to the locked doors that prevented elopement of patients at risk of wandering away and punched the code for the door into a keypad.

  "I'll stay with the men outside her room," Becky said. "She's real sensitive to overstimulation. Try to keep your visit short, detective. If she starts pounding on the bed with her fists, back off and call for help. That's usually what she does before she starts swinging at people. She's stronger than she looks."

  I stepped inside the room and saw the older version of Journey Ireland lying on a bed in the small private room. Isabella's once ebony hair was streaked with gray and fell past her shoulders. Her face was weathered far beyond the age of fifty-seven years. Glassy eyes followed me, set into a flat affect that showed neither anger nor fear at the presence of a stranger.

  "Mrs. Ireland," I stepped close to the bed and used tactile therapy to convey compassion. My fingers stroked the back of her hand slowly. "My name is Helen Eriksson. Can you nod if you understand me?"

  She didn't move.

  I sighed and sat in the chair beside her bed. What could I say? The woman's life had devolved into a loop of never ending tragedy. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Isabella. I want you to know that we're going to take care of Journey. We'll protect her, you have my word."

  Isabella's fingers curled around mine in a death grip. Something sparked in her eyes.

  "Do you understand what I'm saying, Mrs. Ireland?"

  She jerked my hand suddenly, pulled me off balance and toward her. Wild eyes met mine. The low hiss from her lips startled me, until I realized they were actually words.

  "Honor thy father."

  Chapter 30

  Rather than keep my focus on the case, Isabella's nonsensical message pushed me deep into a funk where thoughts of my father made me sullen and mute. The rational part of my brain knew and understood that Isabella Ireland had merely parroted the last thing she ever said. I missed the significance of the fact that she was in fact still capable of speaking.

  My response to the whole thing had been to jerk my hand away and rush out of the room. Devlin and Ned assumed she made the thread Becky predicted, and all I could think about was Wendell, rotting away in prison without so much as a word from his daughter that he was loved, and yes, honored, if only in my memory.

  Devlin and Ned's discussion about dumping phone records for the convalescent home last Saturday was distant and muffled in my ears. I had a vague awareness that my input was requested and nodded.

  "Good," Devlin said. "I'll call and get it processed. How fast do you think we can get the records? I'd imagine a place like that gets more than a hundred calls a day. It's gonna take some time to sift through them and figure out which ones can't be attributed to legitimate calls for information or to speak to the residents."

  Ned chuckled. "You're looking for excuses to bail on the festivities tonight, aren't you?"

  "I've been here a month," Devlin complained. "Nobo
dy would notice if I'm there or not."

  His reluctance to attend the event snapped me out of my mood, at least for a moment. "I've only been here six months, and worked exactly two cases to resolution. If anybody wouldn't be missed, it's me. I'm with Dev, Ned. I say we bail on the monkey suits and keep pushing ahead on this case."

  He chuckled. "Now, I know that's not gonna happen. We're going to this party tonight, and there are very few things that would prevent it."

  "Tell me what they are and I'll move heaven and earth to see them happen," I muttered.

  "We could miraculously find Riley Storm. Or, Danny Datello could decide to walk in and confess to his crimes. Either of those scenarios would justify our absence, I'm sure."

  "Where are we on the search for Riley?"

  Devlin made a half turn in his seat. "We've got teams watching the country club where he apparently spends most of his time, and his house. So far, he's been conspicuously absent. The guy's got to come home sometime, Helen. We'll find him."

  "I wouldn't be so sure about that. If Danny was worried that Riley would talk, God only knows what happened to him."

  Ned parked in front of the courtyard in the circle driveway. "We're home. Dev and I are gonna head out and get ready for this party now, Helen. Johnny said to remind you that Zack is picking you up at five thirty."

  I groaned softly. "I haven't even given two second's thought to what I'll wear tonight."

  Ned grinned at me in the rearview mirror. "He didn't tell you?"

  "Who didn't tell me what?"

  "Johnny," he said. "Go check your closet, Helen. I think he left a little surprise in there for you."

  I modulated my gait until I was safely inside the house, away from eyes that could see me rush to the closet to find what Johnny had left me, far removed from their knowing chuckles that my curiosity would no doubt elicit.

  The white garment bag hung behind the door, probably why I hadn't noticed it before Ned pointed it out to me. I unzipped the opaque plastic and gasped at the elegant, but simple dress. The color was a shimmering silvery-lavender satin. The cut was simple, high collar that would hide my bony clavicles and the scar on my chest from the entry wound. The back of the gown was gathered in a simple fishnet bustle, not too big, not too poufy but enough volume to add the appearance of pounds to my rather emaciated frame. The crème wool and cashmere jacket was cropped short, but long enough to cover my rib cage, with slightly gathered long sleeves that would deemphasize the lack of tone and definition in my arms.