Forgotten Place

by LS Sygnet

  "Ned's here with the grave guy." Devlin broke a long silence by poking his head through the staff lounge door. "You want to wait here?"

  Sure, brain said, didn't give a damn one way or the other. "No," duty commandeered my vocal chords. I dropped the bite of remaining Twinkie and half-drunk cola into the trash and ignored the recycling bin.

  Maya headed to the autopsy bay where Ned waited with the coffin. It had to be unsealed before we could perform a grisly search.

  Devlin stepped inside the lounge and leaned against the door. "Helen."

  I drew breath secretly through my nose. Slow. Remain calm.

  "Tony called."

  Tony Briscoe had probably started dancing a jig the moment word spread that Orion had no idea who I was. He probably provided curvaceous Marci a police escort to the hospital to hold Johnny's hand and nurse him through the trying days ahead.

  "I'm not interested in hearing this, Devlin. We have a case to close." Translation: I have an irresistible distraction to throw at the lot of you so I can slip away and end this the way I should've done it in the first place. Coming to Darkwater Bay under the umbrella of professionalism had been a huge mistake. I should've ducked in under the radar, never returned George Hardy's phone call, slit Datello's throat while he slept warm in his bed and made my own disappearing act to a country that would offer safe haven.

  "Couple of guys in suits showed up looking for you."

  And once again, the FBI reared its ugly head.

  "Tony and Crevan detained them. They were carrying."

  As most feds do.

  "They haven't been able to woo them into giving their real names. We're assuming Smith and Jones are aliases."

  My eyes snapped into focus. "What? They were looking for me?"

  "You know what we suspect this means."

  Hell burned through my veins and sparked a bit of life back into me. My heartbeat hammered out a tribal beat not dissimilar to the infamous drum solo from a little ditty called In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. I knew what it meant too. News of a failed coup at Dunhaven reached the ears of a certain bad guy.

  "How did he get back from Hawaii so fast?" I glanced at precise Swiss craftsmanship on the right wrist again. Little more than eight hours had passed since I left the police gala. "God, the son of a bitch was still here, wasn't he?"

  Devlin shook his head. "Crevan's scouring the airline passenger manifests. We think he might be headed back to town."

  "He wouldn't be on a commercial flight. Question is, can his private jet break the sound barrier?"

  "The commercial flight would take about five and a half hours. If somebody got word to him that you served a warrant on Dunhaven –"

  "Sykes," I cursed. "He called him before he ever showed up at Dunhaven. All this time, I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why they didn't torture me right away."

  He laid one hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. "Didn't they?"

  My armor wasn't immune to the memory of what I heard Johnny suffer. "Indirectly, I suppose that's true. You know what I'm talking about. Datello would've wanted to be present for whatever they planned to do to me. Orion was a nuisance to him. With me, it's personal."

  "What the hell are you talking about? From all accounts, Commander Orion has more than tweaked Datello's nose over the years. Word in Montgomery is that Datello's managed to woo the governor's most vocal opponent into challenging him in the next election. Everybody knows what that means, Helen. Terry Sanderfield has dug his heels in on every bit of financial appropriation to OSI."

  Devlin's ignorance wasn't astounding. "You have no reason to trust me. This thing with the governor's race is nothing more than insurance."

  He cupped my chin, forced eye contact. "Why is this personal, Helen? It makes no sense. The man talked to you what, once?"

  "Twice if you count my wedding."

  Devlin's jaw gaped open like the bottomless pit. "What?"

  "He is my late husband's cousin, a fact I did not know until... let's just say recently. Nobody but Johnny knows... knew that I learned the truth except Datello. Roll into the scenario that the spouse is always a person of interest when one of the pair shows up dead under suspicious circumstances, and it's not rocket science to figure out why this is personal."

  There was no choice but to divulge the truth now. Stupid, impulsive conversation with Southerby left two living witnesses to what I said – the hired gun in question and good old Painless Carl. Dug my own grave on that one.

  I side-stepped the recently-stunned detective and shoved the door open.

  "Helen, we need to talk about –"

  "Don't you get it?" I hissed. "If Datello is on his way back or here already, it's irrelevant. He's already sent his lunatic employees after me twice tonight. I can promise you, we haven't made a dent in his supply of conscienceless employees. They already know we have Ireland's remains. It's just a matter of time before they storm any fortress they damn well please to retrieve this disk they think we're going to find."

  His footfalls matched mine as we rushed down the hallway.

  Chapter 40

  Inside the casket of David Ireland, a small section of satin had been tugged free from the box. One corner of plastic protruded from the pillowy material. It would've been unnoticed by anyone unless they knew what they were looking for.

  I snapped my fingers and a pair of gloves appeared. One tug freed the sandwich-sized zipper bag. "What do you want to bet we'd find Isabella Ireland's prints on this bag if we bothered to look?"

  "Jesus," Ned muttered.

  "Took the secret with him to his grave, literally," Maya said. "The floppy disk."

  I took a closer look. In the same block letters now familiar to me as my own handwriting were three words written on the yellowed label. Honor thy father.

  "We need to find a computer capable of opening the files on this thing. Maya, how obsolete is your hardware?"

  Devlin was still a little freaked out about my dire predictions that Datello's men would storm any fortress. "Shouldn't we get this to division instead? Chain of custody and all that."

  "Don't be absurd. CSD is downstairs," Maya said. "Ken can open the files on that disk before you could drive out of the parking lot."

  "Dev, why don't you call Crevan and find out if he knows anything about the arrival of our other party tonight," I said. "Ned and I will go downstairs and see what Forsythe can do with this disk, and Maya's going to put security on high alert."

  ~

  Everyone congregated within a quarter hour to hover over Forsythe's shoulder. The disk contained numerous files, but not as infinite a number as we'd find on say a hard disk drive from that era. The floppy disk only held about one and a half megabytes of data, roughly a little more than the average novel in Pages format. I doubted that when Forsythe was able to open the files, we'd find anything as neat as a narrative account of Datello's evil deeds with dates and locations offered into evidence.

  "Dates and locations," I said.

  "Huh?" Devlin refocused his attention on me with a wariness that made skin crawl.

  Ned heard the soft utterance too. He'd spent more time with the boxes from Ireland's office than any of us. Even though not privy to the conversation Orion and I shared with my mentor David Levine, he was one sharp guy in his own right.

  "Oh my God. It's been staring us in the face all week long, hasn't it? Dates. Times. Locations. All documented in numeric format alone."

  "Did you go through that last box?"

  "I found them the first night, while you were sleeping and put them aside. It looked like stacks of self-tests off an old printer. I couldn't fathom what they meant, if anything but intended to ask you what you thought about them later."

  "What are you two talking about?" Devlin asked.

  "We need to get those pages out of my office at home," I said. "Forsythe, keep working on finding software that'll open those files."

  "What made you think of dates and locations?" Ned fell into ste
p beside me with Devlin on our heels.

  "I was thinking about what we'd find on the disk, realizing that it wasn't going to be some narrative confession of whatever it is David Ireland uncovered. Something clicked in my head. When Orion and I were in Washington, my friend from the FBI told us that Southerby had been teasing the bureau along with promises of dates and locations for where Sully Marcos buried the bodies so to speak. He disappeared shortly after the FBI determined that he was the anonymous tipster. They were never able to talk to him and get the information."

  "So Southerby is something more than the bad guy in this? How does that make sense, Helen?" Devlin paced the small box as it rose two floors to the lobby level of the Bay County building. "He seemed pretty into the job he had, be it for Marcos or Datello."

  "You're right, Dev. I don't think Mitch Southerby was this so-called deep throat character at all. Think about it, about the clue that Ireland left splattered from office notes to his gravestone."

  "Honor thy father. The clippings about his dad's murder," Dev slammed one fist into the palm of the opposite hand. "Why would he kill somebody to keep the truth about who planned to rat out the big bad uncle to the feds?"

  Ned quelled his partners agitation with a stare that was the equivalent of a thumb tack pinning him to the wall. "Are you serious? Family doesn't mean to these losers what it does to the real world. Anybody that steps out of line gets the same treatment, blood or no blood. If Datello thought Uncle Sully killed Daddy, why wouldn't he believe he'd suffer the same fate if he ratted out the big bad boss too?"

  "So why bring all of this up now?" Devlin started to postulate an answer I already knew.

  My heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of my left ankle. It was because of me, whether indirectly or not, my actions last spring had triggered something in Datello, a ruthlessness that maybe he had suppressed over the years following David Ireland's murder. Maybe he realized on some level that his actions, the murder of Ireland, the follow up with McNamara and subsequent replacement by Lowe was a step too far. Putting Lowe in a position of power had been a mistake that Datello had to realize when Jerry bluffed his way into convincing Datello that he had possession of the disk all along.

  Then my ex-husband, another beloved Datello family member was murdered, and who shows up in town to arrest the man who could prove to Uncle Sully – if no one else – that Danny-boy had been on the verge of perpetuating the greatest betrayal of all? None other than the one who killed his cousin, the one who would arrest Jerry Lowe and potentially expose the whole mess.

  I cursed expansively.

  The elevator chimed.

  The doors opened.

  Nobody moved.

  They closed again.

  "Helen?"

  Ned looked as worried as Devlin. Don't get me wrong. I can gutter-mouth with the best of them, but it's usually reserved for the silent dialogue of the mind. I don't think anyone has heard me utter the words that fell out of my mouth.

  One finger jabbed the open door button on the elevator. "We need to get to my house. Journey is there. I realize that OSI has guys guarding the place, but I really don't want to think about rebuilding a second time."

  "He'd go as far as Lowe did?" Ned asked.

  "Danny Datello is..." My eyes met Dev's. He was shaking his head no. As in, don't go there, you don't have to go there, Helen. Your secret is safe with me.

  "He's ruthless enough to bring Southerby back to Darkwater Bay to find evidence that Ireland literally took to his grave. Let's just say I don't want to take any more chances."

  I pressed the keys to my Expedition into Devlin's hand.

  "Are you all right?"

  "A little sore."

  Ned shook his head like he wondered why it took me so long to notice that I'd been through hell over the past eight hours and change.

  "Take something for pain when we get to the house," Devlin said.

  "Helen, there's still the matter of deciphering those printouts," Ned dragged all heads back into the case with a single undeniable truth. We were looking at dozens of pages of nothing but numbers. "Maybe the disk has some sort of key code on it, yes?"

  "Possibly," but my brain wasn't so sure. Ireland had left cryptic clues at best. I didn't expect a sort of wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am easy resolution and said so. "I'd like to know how a guy that prosecuted fraud cases for the district managed to get his hands on any of this information in the first place."

  "One of his investigations in the months leading up to his death involved complaints from the service employee's union that funds were being funneled into personal accounts instead of being used to represent the workers," Ned said. "There's a loose link to Datello, in that he's been very buddy-buddy with all the unions in the area since day one."

  "So Ireland was in contact with counsel for the union?" Dev maneuvered through heavy fog and headed west through Downey toward Beach Cliffs.

  I had climbed into my normal position of taking the back seat when riding with partners and perched in the middle, a hand draped over each bucket seat in the front. I leaned forward. "Theoretically, that could've been what put Datello on his radar," I said. "What did his notes say about the investigation?"

  "He asked for information, the union supplied it. Ireland thoroughly reviewed it and found no evidence of criminal activity."

  "So he closed the investigation?"

  Ned turned his head and frowned. "No."

  "So it was still open, even though he found nothing fraudulent in the union's practices?"

  "Weird, huh?"

  "Let's not jump to conclusions. What else was on his docket?"

  Ned unfastened his seatbelt and readjusted for a more direct view. "That union thing was one of two embezzlement investigations. The other was a case of insurance fraud. Somebody in the company collected premiums and only paid out on a minimal number of claims. That case had chops. He had a court date set on it and a strong case against the financial officer of the company."

  "Do you know the outcome?"

  A head shake, and, "Fraud cases aren't so glamorous, Helen. We'd have to wait for the DA's office to open Tuesday morning if you want the particulars on that one."

  "Or," I pulled out my still slightly muddy iPhone and dialed.

  "Conall."

  "It's Helen. Remember when you used Belle's password to do a little digging into the Sentinel's archives?"

  "Yeah."

  "Are you near a computer right now?"

  "Tony and I are back at Downey. What do you need?"

  I explained and listened to his fingers flying over the keyboard while I filled in the blanks with what little we knew about the case.

  "Got it," Crevan said. "They did a small article after the sentencing. The guy was found guilty on all charges and went to white collar prison for the country club set. The insurance company went belly up after a spate of civil suits from clients determined to be paid for their inconvenience."

  "Don't think I'm crazy for asking this, but was Danny Datello linked to that insurance company in any way?"

  "If he was, it never came out in the course of the prosecution's case. You want me to do a little digging?"

  "How's the thing going with our alias boys?" I asked.

  "What do you think? They want their phone call. They want their lawyer. We're not gonna get anywhere with these geniuses. It would seem the brain cell the two of them share is the one that knows when to shut up."

  "Did you find any information on the flight manifests?"

  "No," Crevan said. "Tony found some information on that topic. Let me put him on the line, he's right –"

  "You tell me. I'd rather not talk to him right now."

  A blast of air hissed across the connection. "Datello's private jet left Hawaii at around ten thirty our time last night. It landed a couple of hours ago."

  "Do we know where he is?"

  "Tony made a call to the division office out on Hennessey Island. They've got guys watching the Island Hotel Resor
t and Casino."

  "He lives out there, right?"

  "Whole top floor is home sweet home to Danny and the little missus." Crevan's pause was heavy. "I wish you would've stuck around at the hospital, Helen."

  "Can't talk about that now. Call me if something changes with Datello or his employees have a change of heart."

  I clicked off and tried to discern our location through the murky vichyssoise of pre-dawn.

  "Nothing on the insurance case?"

  Ned was still twisted around in his seat.

  "No overt link to Datello. What were the other cases Ireland had?"

  "Mail fraud, pyramid schemes, credit card stuff."

  "So the most reasonable link between his work and Danny Datello was the union. Do you remember who the legal counsel for it was?"

  "The union?"

  "Yeah, the union. Did Ireland say who he was speaking to regarding the investigation?"

  "Sure I remember. The guy was disbarred a couple of years after Ireland died. His name was Dayton Stefano. His brother was his partner. The brother's still got a criminal law practice here in the city," Ned said.

  "What's Dayton doing with himself these days?"

  "No clue," Ned said. "But I can tell you, a lawyer getting smacked down in this city was a rare event even back in the day."

  "And you can't remember why he was disbarred?"

  "I remember it well enough," Ned said. "He violated privilege. As I recall, it was a case from central, some guy accused of diddling the little daughter, and Stefano went to the DA and revealed that the guy confessed to his family therapist. Stirred up a ruckus when the prosecution went after the guy's medical records based on a tip from his own attorney."

  "A defense attorney with ethics. Stop the presses," I muttered. My experience with those in the legal profession had left me feeling less than impressed with them as a whole, even those tasked with prosecuting cases. My dearly departed ex-husband came to mind again, and the US Attorney's office, the grotesque reluctance to prosecute him based on the mountain of evidence they had incriminating him in Sully's money laundering operation. It was always a matter of extremes in that profession. Either the defense guys were lying through willful ignorance to exonerate the guilty or the prosecutors resisted doing their jobs with anything less than a slam dunk win.