by LS Sygnet
“I’ll have Crevan get right on it,” he said.
Ferrite sighed heavily. “He’s in Montgomery. Every year, he gives the hospital an endowment. His name is Sherman.”
“Hang on, Crevan.” Devlin pressed his phone to his chest. “Eugene Sherman?”
“Yes, I see you’ve heard of him.”
Devlin turned his pointed stare on me. “Helen, we need to talk right now.”
Chapter 6
I let him drag me out into the hallway. “What I need to do is bitch slap some sense into that woman. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait for ten minutes?”
“Eugene Sherman is very well known in political circles in Montgomery. He also died in February.”
“Shit.”
“He’s been a staunch supporter of Collangelo. We can’t possibly think some woman whose mother used to care for his children, probably grew up with them, is guilty of kidnapping a baby from a hospital.”
“Why can’t we think it? She’s the only person who ran when the police showed up. An innocent person doesn’t run, Devlin.”
“Let’s just… not get carried away until we’ve got the facts.”
“Yo, Eriksson!” Tony Briscoe barked from halfway down the hall. “We got us somebody that ought to talk to you sooner rather than later.”
“Go back in there. Get them to print the personnel files we need and hand them off to Darnell. He’s gonna have to divvy up the workload with all these cops from Darkwater with Charlie Haverston. I’m gonna go see what Briscoe thinks is such an earth-shattering statement. Meet me downstairs in twenty minutes.”
“Where are we going?”
“To see Danny Datello.”
My eyes darted around the crowded space looking for Crevan. He was nowhere in sight. “Who am I talking to?”
Briscoe grinned. “Good to see you too, Helen. She’s right in there. Name’s Kelly Robards. She was working with the babies earlier with the missing nurse.”
“Excellent.” I pushed the door open and stopped short. The nurse was sobbing on Crevan’s shoulder while he patted her back soothingly.
“There now, just tell Dr. Eriksson everything you remember this afternoon. You’re not in any trouble, Kelly.”
She gazed up at him with doe eyes. It explained Tony’s glee.
“Ms. Robards?”
She nodded and sniffled, offered one hand and thought better of it. “You’re Dr. Eriksson. I remember reading about you with that shooting last fall.”
Yeah, didn’t we all? “Tell me what you observed this afternoon.”
“I didn’t think anything of it, you know? We all have to run to the bathroom from time to time.”
“You’re telling me about Nurse Payette’s bathroom breaks?”
“I went to lunch late, you see. I came back to the nursery and Flo was just… gone. The babies were all screaming bloody murder. She said she had to run to the bathroom, but when she came back, she seemed like she was out of breath.”
“Don’t you have a staff bathroom inside the nursery?” I asked.
“Sure we do, but the keypad has been broken for a week or so, and we’ve had to leave the nursery to use the one down the hall.”
“I’m told that Ms. Payette is older. Late fifties?”
“Probably. She’s funny about that sort of thing. Doesn’t want anyone to know her age. I guess that happens when we get old.”
“Over the past week, has she seemed short of breath when she comes back from the bathroom?”
Kelly shook her head. “She’s fit, you know? But that wasn’t the weirdest thing I noticed.”
“Tell me. Time is critical Ms. Robards.”
“Flo always carries this big bag to work. She knits or reads or whatnot when things are slow in the nursery, like when the mom’s have their babies, or we don’t have many in the nursery. I saw her slip out the stairwell tonight. She wasn’t carrying her bag.”
“And it ain’t in the nursery,” Briscoe said. He waggled his eyebrows. “So what do you think, Kelly? That bag big enough to sneak out a newborn baby inside it?”
She swallowed hard, a soft echo punctuating her nod. “God help me, but I can’t imagine why Flo would steal a baby.”
“How long was it between the time she came back to the nursery and you discovered that the Datello infant was missing?” I asked.
“Probably half an hour. I didn’t even realize the baby had come back to the nursery until Suzanne came to take her back to Mrs. Datello. I must’ve been at lunch when Flo checked her in.”
“I see.” Looked like a slam dunk on our inside job. At the same time, a glance at my watch revealed that the baby had been missing for five hours. Florence hadn’t made her escape from the hospital for at least ninety minutes after the baby disappeared. It was a long time to stash a newborn elsewhere in the hospital where it wouldn’t be discovered. Then again, that shortness of breath issue gave me pause. “Thank you for the information, Ms. Robards. Please make sure that Detective Conall has your contact information should we need to ask you additional questions.”
Crevan followed me out of the room. “What do you think?”
“She probably took the baby,” I said quietly. “But she was here too long to have stashed the baby in the hospital.”
“You think she had a partner?”
“We can’t rule it out. Call Chris. I want financial records on this Payette woman. If someone from the Marcos tribe paid her to abduct this child, I want to know about it. Is our FBI agent here yet?”
“No,” Crevan said. “He called about an hour ago and said that he was unavoidably delayed. He should be here by midnight.”
I snorted softly. “So much for the bureau’s commitment to finding missing children.” At Crevan’s concerned expression, I added, “No, not the whole FBI. I could make one phone call and have a team from DC here before this buffoon makes an appearance, I’m sure. I don’t think that’s what we want, Crevan. We’re making better progress on this without their interference.”
“Still, don’t you think you should let someone in D.C. know about this? Don’t you still have that friend –?”
“David. Yeah, Devlin and I are heading over to the county jail to talk to Datello right now. I’ll call him on the way. In the meantime, get a status report on Payette. We need her in custody now, Crevan.”
“Got it. Talk to you soon.”
Devlin was with Chris in the lobby of the hospital. From their expressions, I couldn’t mistake the black cloud about to burst into torrential rain. I gripped Chris’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Carlos Stefano is what’s wrong.”
“Dear God, now what?”
“He’s gone back to Judge Gates alleging misconduct against OSI,” Chris growled. “Apparently he was lurking in the wings when you and Devlin showed up. He’s filed an injunction with the court barring us from using you to help close this case.”
“Christ,” I hissed. “I’m starting to wonder if Datello wants his kid found or not.”
“I had the same notion,” Dev said. “What do you want us to do, Helen?”
“I guess we call Zack and see if he can talk some sense into Judge Gates. Please tell me she didn’t rule on this right away.”
“She’s waiting for Zack to show up to hear arguments,” Chris said. “But given your history and the allegations he’s made against you personally through four long weeks of delays, I can’t help but feel a little worried.”
“And I’m feeling the filthy fingerprints of Danny Datello all over this case.” I gritted my teeth. This would’ve been so much simpler if I’d just crept into town, put a bullet in the back of his head and sneaked off into the night. “He’s orchestrated this whole thing.”
“You think his wife was putting on a show upstairs?”
I rolled my eyes at Devlin. “You heard her. He could blow my brains out right in front of her and she’d refuse to believe what she saw. Why should I believe she means anything more to him than I
meant to his cousin? Wives are insurance policies, Dev. Nothing more.”
“She offered to talk to him if he tried to stop you from finding this baby,” Dev said. “I say we get his ass on a phone to his wife pronto. Chris, can you facilitate something like that?”
“Damn right I can. Call Crevan and tell him to talk to her. She needs to understand that her husband wants Helen off this case before he calls. You two carry on. Get over to the county lockup and talk to him whether he likes it or not. I’ll let Zack know what we’re doing.”
The melancholy at the beginning of my day drifted quickly away in light of the new business at hand. My rusty brain sparked back to life. Cobwebs sizzled away. How had I ever believed that giving up the job was a good idea? I rubbed my face.
Oh yeah, the constant battles and character assassination had been part of the problem. Somehow it didn’t seem to bother me much in the heat of the moment. Datello would end up making himself look guilty as hell if he kept fighting the efforts of law enforcement to find his daughter.
That thought alone pleased me immensely. Keep it up, you stupid fool. I’ll find evidence that puts you right in the middle of this plot. We’ll see how long you can delay more charges tacked onto your indictment.
“You all right?”
“Yes. Just trying to figure out how to collect my thoughts and how to approach my personal nemesis.”
“Helen, if you think this would go better if you aren’t in there with him, I can wear an ear bud and you can tell me what to ask him.”
“No way, Dev. You don’t know this man like I do. You won’t be able to read him. And yes, he’s that subtle that unless I’m standing right in front of him, I won’t know what he’s really doing.”
My cell phone rang.
“Eriksson.”
“It’s Crevan. We’ve got Payette in custody. I’ve got a team delivering her to OSI right now. Chris set up the phone call with Datello and his wife. It hasn’t come through yet, but I’ll call you back with a status update.”
“No need, Crevan. We’ll be at the jail in a matter of minutes the way Devlin is speeding through town. How far out are we from the abduction?”
“Creeping up on six hours. Why?”
“I suppose roadblocks are moot at this point.”
“Chris has techs going over hospital security footage on all the exits right now. There was some foot-dragging at first. Apparently you put the fear of God in the CEO.”
“Bastard,” I muttered. “What’s wrong with a world that worries about litigation first when a baby’s life is at stake?”
“It’s sure not one we want to live in. Call me if you need to. Like I said, Datello might be on the phone when you get to the jail.”
“Thanks Crevan. We can see it now. If she’s not on the phone with him in thirty seconds, I’m afraid we’re going to beat her to the punch.”
“Gotcha.”
I disconnected the call and jumped out of Devlin’s sedan before it came to a complete stop. His long stride outmatched mine by the time we got to the door.
“Hey, Eriksson!” Saul Becker recognized me from Central Division. He worked as a reserve cop downtown when shifts were cut at the county jail. Since Jerry Lowe’s arrest, that was no longer an issue. People were arrested and sentenced to county.
“We’re here to see Danny Datello,” Devlin said.
“Right. We’re wrangling over how to get him a phone call to his wife at the moment.”
“This won’t wait, Saul. I need to talk to him now,” I said. “I don’t know if you guys have heard, but his newborn baby was abducted from Saint Mary’s late this afternoon.”
His eyes widened. “No shit?”
“Not even a skid mark,” I said. “Has he had any visitors today?”
“His lawyer came back with him from the courthouse, but he hasn’t even had a phone call tonight. Sullen son of a bitch threw his dinner tray when Thomas delivered it. We figured if that’s gonna be his attitude, he can go hungry.”
“Does he know that Celeste had the baby, that she’s medically stable?”
“Sure,” Saul said. “We got the phone call from his lawyer and delivered a message. I figured it was a little weird that he didn’t ask to tell him personally, but you know how these guys are. He probably had something brewing with that business at the courthouse this morning.”
Saul slid open a drawer for our weapons – something I no longer had the authority to carry in an official capacity. He disengaged the lock on the heavy glass door and waited for us on the other side.
“You want him in a holding cell or an interview room?”
“Interview, but Saul, what did you mean when you said you were wrangling to get him on the phone to his wife?”
“Ah, hell, he started going off on how it was probably some bullshit you guys cooked up, coercing her into believing that she’s not in danger. Like I said, Thomas is still arguing with him, trying to convince him that his wife asked to speak to him.”
“Do me a favor. Radio Officer Thomas and have him just bring Datello to the interview room without an explanation. And Saul, do you think he already knows what happened today?”
He scoffed softly. “Are you kidding me? He’d be screaming to high heaven if he did. I can’t say much good about that guy, but he happens to worship the ground the little woman walks on, if you know what I mean. Eyes light up like a kid at Christmas every time she comes to visit.”
“Thanks, Saul.”
He opened the door to the interview room. Dev perched with one leg bent, foot against the wall while I paced. It felt like eternity before my eyes met those so familiar to me, not because I’d ever spent much time with my former cousin by marriage, but because it was one physical trait he shared with my late ex-husband.
Datello froze when he saw me. Instead of screaming invectives at me, he walked slowly toward the door, more of a shuffle really, since his legs were shackled.
“What’s wrong? Why the fuck are you here, Helen?”
I swallowed a lump that materialized in the back of my throat. This was not the behavior of a man play acting. He looked genuinely alarmed.
“Goddammit! What happened to Celeste? I told you people –”
“Celeste is fine, Danny. I think you should sit down.”
Officer Thomas pulled out a chair and nudged Datello into it with a rough shove.
I chewed my lower lip. This didn’t make sense. If his lawyer knew what was going on, why hadn’t he called Datello? Why was he fighting to keep me out of the investigation as a consultant if Danny wasn’t pulling the strings?
“Tell me what’s wrong. Or are you here to claim that there isn’t a threat toward my family?”
I sat down and perched my elbows on the table. “Do you trust Carlos Stefano?”
“What the fuck? Of course I trust him. He’s been my attorney for nearly twenty years. This is a new tactic, Helen. Are you trying to make me so paranoid that I won’t even trust a man I’ve known most of my adult life?”
“Why would he file an injunction with the court to keep me from consulting on a case we opened for the express purpose of protecting Celeste? I mean, c’mon, Danny. I know you hate me. But I suspect that you love your wife more than you could ever hate anybody, including me.”
He gritted his teeth. “Why would I want someone with a vendetta against my family allegedly protecting them?”
I leaned forward. “Because that’s what Celeste asked me to do.”
Some of the tension bled out of his jaw. “She’s very trusting. When it comes to understanding people like us, Celeste hasn’t got a clue.”
“She refused to speak with the police tonight, Danny. She specifically asked to talk to me. Do you know what she told me?”
Wary eyes impaled me. “What? And why would she need to talk to the police?”
“She told me that she wanted my help because there are only two people in the world who understand your distant kin – us, Danny. You and me.”
“She is.”
Dawning crashed down over his head. “Oh God. The baby?”
“She’s missing. I find it odd that your lawyer is in chambers with Judge Gates right now trying to bar me from helping the police find your daughter, Danny. Can you think of anyone else in this city with more experience looking for missing children?”
His olive skin faded to the color of almond milk. “Get me a phone.”
“Celeste wants to talk to you, Danny.”
“Not yet. I need to call Carlos and tell him to knock it off.”
Devlin’s shock crowded me from behind. “Are you playing us, Datello? What’s with the abrupt change of heart about Helen’s help?”
“My wife, despite her age, is a very wise soul, Detective Mackenzie. Helen and I can hate each other for reasons well deserved until the stars fall. This is my child we’re talking about. Celeste is right. So is Helen. There isn’t anyone else better equipped to find our baby.”
I slid my cell phone across the table. “Make the call. Then I’ve got a few questions for you. When we’re finished, Officer Thomas will take you to a phone and you can call Celeste. As much as it sickens me to say this, she deserves the comfort you can offer her.”
Stefano agreed to cooperate with Datello’s order – a moot point as it turned out, since Judge Gates pointed out the fact that Devlin and I were the ones who recognized that the threat against Celeste Datello was legitimate.
“Now,” I stuffed my phone back into my purse. “Who in Sully’s organization could still be hanging around outside the hospitality of my former federal brethren to be involved in something like this?”
“Franchetta would be my first bet,” Datello said. “But rumor has it, he’s still in lockup. I know you don’t believe me, but I genuinely have had very little to do with Sully’s business interests for more than a decade.”
“Hmm,” I nodded. “Nice last act you committed, Danny.” We knew full well what it had been. The day he offered my former husband to his uncle with a nice juicy insurance policy – me, the brand new FBI agent.
