by LS Sygnet
“We’re not talking something illegal are we?”
“No, of course not. I freely admit that I killed Gillette. I don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse for it either. I had a justification defense had the DA’s office filed charges. No, this is something personal, something I haven’t been able to share with anyone. I think the reasons are rather obvious. At least they are to me.”
“Tell me,” Maya urged. “Is it about what happened to you?”
“It’s about that human trafficking case,” I said. “I doubt it would be of any use to the prosecution since it happened so long ago. Even though there is no federal statute of limitations for kidnapping, I doubt that many, if any of the conspirators involved in the case are still living. The one that might be is already incarcerated for life.”
“Helen, what are you saying? Did Andy Gillette tell you something?”
I nodded. “It’s very sensitive. Johnny swore me to secrecy.”
“Oh my God. What is it?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “When Sofia Datello was abducted from Saint Mary’s, we asked the administrator about the hospital’s history. He informed us that two other infants were taken from the hospital in its fifty or sixty year history. One happened while Jerry Lowe was chief of detectives, the other happened almost 40 years ago.”
“And it’s the old case that you somehow learned was part of what Gillette and his crew were involved in? Helen, that makes no sense. Gillette was forty-seven years old at the time of his death. He was a child forty years ago.”
“I realize that. But he knew things about that case.” I readjusted my perch on the edge of the planter and turned toward her. “The police were never able to uncover the true identity of the woman who kidnapped that infant,” I said. “All they knew was that her name was an alias and that she and the baby disappeared without a trace.”
“All right. How does that necessitate the secrecy you’ve implied?”
“Because we know the family who lost their child. It was a twin, Maya.”
She stared blankly.
“The child was born on June second, shortly after midnight. The first child was born one minute before midnight on June first.”
“Okay. Is that significant?”
“The family name was Conall.”
“Oh dear lord. Crevan?”
I nodded. “Johnny talked to Aidan about it, or tried to at least. He wasn’t particularly cooperative. Perhaps denial is a family trait.” I gnawed on my lower lip.
“What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Aidan and his wife finally told Crevan that he was a twin when he was college age. I have this theory that Aidan lied to Crevan about it because he suspected his son was a homosexual and wanted to hold something over his head to suppress the natural inclinations he saw emerging in his son.”
“What did he tell Crevan?”
“That the child was stillborn, that it was a brother.”
“Wait a minute. He didn’t tell him that the boy was abducted?”
“No,” I said softly, “and even if he had told the truth about the abduction, in the context that he told the story, it would’ve still been a lie.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The infant wasn’t a son, Maya. It was a daughter that was abducted. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the statistics involved in human trafficking, but the ratio of female to male is glaring. The preference is more than three to one for females.”
Maya’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Your birthday is June second.”
My voice faded away to a raspy whisper. “I was born eleven minutes past midnight.”
“Oh my God, Helen. You think you’re the abducted infant from Saint Mary’s?”
“I knew that Crevan and I were separated by mere minutes. I learned that several months ago and didn’t think a thing of it. We thought his twin was not only stillborn, but male.”
“Then what happened?”
“Andy Gillette said some things to me while I was chained to the wall of that cargo bay. He flat out told me that the sale he was facilitating wasn’t the first time I’d been sold. He said that my notion of freedom was nothing but an illusion, that someone has always owned me.”
“Jesus Christ and General Jackson. Did it occur to you that he was lying? Messing with your head?”
“Of course it did, Maya. Until he uttered a name.”
“Dear God. He knew the alias of the woman who abducted Crevan’s sister, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “Martha Henderson.”
“Why haven’t you told Crevan any of this? Why haven’t you told Johnny?”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it. And I can’t shake the feeling that perhaps Gillette was just screwing with my head. But I need to know the truth about who I am, Maya. I need to know if Crevan is my brother, if my whole life has been nothing but a lie. I need to know if my father was part of this.”
“He’s the possible conspirator that’s still living,” she said flatly.
“And I know my father,” I said. “I could never just show up for a visit and confront him and expect that he’d tell me the truth. What if I’m wrong? What if he’s just as ignorant about this as I’ve been?”
“Hold on a second. We don’t even know for a fact that this is true. Helen, I know you don’t want to tell Johnny, but you have to. It needs to be investigated fully.”
“I know,” I said, “but he’s already been through so much because meeting me absolutely ruined his life. And what if I’m wrong? What if Gillette lied? We know he was keeping tabs on our investigation. He might’ve known that we got the case files on the other abducted infants from Saint Mary’s. At worst, he could’ve realized what we would’ve done as a matter of course in the Datello investigation.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
I drew in a shuddering breath. “Because you have my DNA. I need your help – quietly, Maya. If it turns out that Gillette lied, nobody gets hurt. No one but you and me will ever know what he said to me.”
“You want me to analyze Crevan’s DNA and compare it to yours.”
“Yes,” I said. I reached into my purse and retrieved a plastic bag containing a half smoked cigar. “After Johnny announced my pregnancy yesterday, he passed out cigars. This one was Crevan’s. Do you think you can get enough DNA to compare it to mine?”
She took the bag from my hand and stuffed it into her purse. “It’ll take a few days for a complete DNA analysis. We can get a mitochondrial sample much quicker. It will definitively show if your maternal traits are the same.”
“And you’ll promise me right now that no matter what the results show, this is something that is between the two of us only? You can’t tell Forsythe. And no matter what happens, you can’t tell Johnny or Crevan or anyone else, especially if Gillette was telling the truth.”
“Helen, I don’t understand why you’d want to conceal it if it’s true. Don’t the Conalls have the right to know that their daughter is living right here, under their noses, that she’s safe and happy and has had a good life?”
“I need to know if my father was part of this, Maya. Until I can prove his guilt or innocence, I can’t tell anyone else what I’m doing.”
“Of course,” she gripped my hand in hers and squeezed. “But Helen, it would be so much simpler if you let the people who love you help you get to the bottom of how this happened, especially if what we suspect turns out to be the truth.”
“Then you think it’s possible that Crevan is my twin brother?”
Maya nodded. “I’d must’ve been blind not to see the resemblance before now. My God. You look like siblings, Helen. Why didn’t I notice this the first time I saw you together?”
“Because we often can’t see things that are right in front of us. Especially when we think we already know the truth.”
“Screw shopping,” Maya said. “Let’s head over to the lab and get the test started.”
“I need to h
ear you say it, Maya.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I promise that I’ll take this secret with me to the grave. I don’t agree with you, but I’ll respect the confidence.”
“No matter what happens?”
“As long as you keep me in the loop with regard to what you’re doing, I won’t tell anyone what you shared with me.”
“Or the test results.”
“Fine,” Maya sighed. “The whole thing is our secret. What I won’t promise is to stop nagging you to confide in your husband. He loves you, Helen. If anyone in the world is capable of keeping your secrets, it’s Johnny Orion.”
True enough, but I am a creature of habit, more than anything else.
Chapter 5
Tony Briscoe’s jowls were tight when he lumbered through the door of the diner across the street from Downey Division. We had made yet another tentative truce when he showed up at the house yesterday. Seeing him now made my hackles rise and reminded me of every single reason I had to dislike and distrust him.
I masked it behind a warm smile.
He relaxed marginally before sliding into the booth across from me. His eyes widened at the heaping plate of food in front of me.
“Sorry,” I said, dragging a French fry through a lake of ketchup. “Eating for two these days, and when the mood to graze strikes, there’s not a whole lot I can do to control it.”
The black cloud around him evaporated in the shimmer of a bright smile. “That’s just fantastic news, Eriksson. I know how delighted Johnny was when he shared it yesterday. Despite my misgivings, you’ve made him a very happy man.”
I wagged one finger at him. “It’s not Eriksson anymore.”
His eyes widened. “But Johnny said you hadn’t taken his name when he finally got the ring on your finger.”
“I stopped at the Social Security office on my way over here,” I said. “It’s officially Helen Eriksson Orion now. Johnny doesn’t know yet. I thought I’d surprise him when I get home from lunch.”
His eyes fixed on a small crack in the Formica tabletop for a moment. Our waitress approached before he had the chance to explain why he was suddenly reluctant to speak. In all the months that I’d known Tony Briscoe, I had never once seen him filter his thoughts before an outrageous blurt of Briscoe gospel.
“Hey, Tony. The usual?”
“That’d be fine Maxine. Thanks.”
I waited for the waitress to scurry off to the kitchen before posing the open ended question. “What?”
“Well, I guess it ain’t no secret that I had some serious doubts about you after Johnny got hurt. Despite your recent actions, I’m man enough to admit I was probably wrong, Helen. I’m sorry for how I suspected you of bein’ something less than law-abiding.”
Probably wrong. It was so Tony Briscoe. He was a master of the uncommitted apology. I forced a grin. “Well, I was probably wrong to grab you by the throat the way I did that night on the bay shore,” I returned one in similar form. “What you said pissed me off, Tony. I’ve never investigated a case with more vigor based on the ethnicity of the victim.”
“I know that. Tempers was runnin’ hot that night. I get it. I just hope you realize that you’re a hell of a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
“And I was hormonal more than I realized that night too.”
Tony blinked rapidly. “I don’t follow.”
“I’m pregnant, Tony. Almost three months along, now. I didn’t know at the time that I was reacting a little more extremely than usual based on the hormonal pendulum swinging back and forth inside me.”
“Oh. Never thought about that. Hell, now it really does make sense. My first wife was a raging –” he stopped and censored himself again. “Well, let’s just say I thought she’d lost her mind when she was pregnant with our daughter.”
“Maybe on some level I knew, or at least suspected that I was pregnant,” I said. “Maybe that’s what made the Datello baby’s abduction hit me so hard.” My hand smoothed over a still flat belly. “Instincts can be very strong, Tony.”
“Makes sense,” he said. Never one to beat around the bush, Tony segued into something else. “Don’t tell me this is why you wanted to have lunch with me,” he said. “I know you better than that. What’s the real agenda?”
“I’m worried about Crevan.”
Briscoe grunted. “He ain’t doin’ so bad from what I hear.”
“I thought if you could bury the hatchet with someone you accused of being no better than the murderers you’ve arrested, you might be amenable to making things right with a man who was very close to you for a long time, Tony.”
“Close to me, bah. In all that time, he never thought to mention that he was livin’ a double life. What’s that tell you about him, what he really thought of me and our partnership?”
“You were more than partners and you know it. Hell, you were on his side the whole time, Tony. You knew what a dick his father was. You knew that Belle was nothing but bad news. You know what I think?”
“I’m sure it don’t matter to you if I care to know, so you may as well spit it out.”
“I think that you don’t give a damn if Crevan is gay, straight or becomes a celibate priest. What’s in your craw is that you found out about it at the same time everybody else did.”
The waitress returned with Tony’s lunch and asked me how my meal was. I ordered another strawberry shake, which elicited a chuckle from Briscoe.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I said. “Tell me that you’d rather have your friend miserable, living half a life out of fear of being who he really is.”
“It ain’t that simple.”
“He’s seeing someone. Did you know that?”
“I heard,” he said. “That fella that owns the bar over here in Downey. Waters.”
“Alex,” I nodded. “They’re very happy.”
“Well ain’t that sweet?”
“Tony, do you deny that you know him better than anyone else in this city? I know that he and Johnny are supposedly best friends, but I’d lay odds that Crevan shared more with you than he ever has with Johnny.”
“Like what?” he mumbled around a bite of bleeding beef.
“Crevan recently told me some things about his relationship with his father. I’d lay a fifty on it, that you know more about his relationship with Aidan than anybody else in Darkwater Bay.”
“Well, I had the benefit of hearing him vent about things for a lot of years, but that’s all it was. Blowing off steam. He didn’t say jack squat to me because he trusted me. I was just there at the time the gasket blew.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, his old man has always been a real son of a bitch. It ain’t rocket science seein’ that a guy might have to blow every once in awhile over stuff like that.”
“Aidan isn’t being very good to Crevan right now.”
Tony snorted softly. “Now why ain’t that a surprise?”
“No, I mean he’s been cruel, Tony. He’s said things to Crevan that no parent should ever say.”
He laid down his burger and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “All right. Let me have it. I know that’s what this is all about, Helen. You might as well spit it out.”
Tony Briscoe was far too easy to manipulate. I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “He told him that he wished that Crevan had been the son that died, that he was always a disappointment and that he couldn’t understand why God would punish him with the weak child and let the good one die.”
“That ain’t the first time Aidan pedaled that bullshit,” Briscoe’s face turned bright red. “Man oughtta be horsewhipped. Seriously. What kind of jackass says that shit to his only son?”
“Not his only one, according to Aidan.”
“Guy’s delusional,” Tony opined.
“What do you mean? Other than the fact that he couldn’t ask for a better son than the one he got.”
“Well, that’s part of it, true enough,” Briscoe started eating
again. Angry jamming of food into his round baggy face. “I told Crevan years ago that his daddy was nothin’ but a goddamned liar. He got pretty upset with me too, never believed a fuckin’ word I said. I finally threw up my hands in disgust and told him to trot on over to central and pull the case file if he didn’t believe me.”
Crevan knew the truth? Why would he choose to believe his father if Tony already told him that he never had a stillborn brother? I guarded my expression carefully. “What are you saying, Tony? That Aidan made the whole story up to manipulate Crevan?”
“Not the whole thing. Mind you, I was but a pup beat cop at the time it happened, but the story Aidan told ain’t exactly the truth. I know people do all sorts of weird shit to cope with stuff they don’t wanna face. Hell, I guess we all do it. But that baby was no more stillborn than it was a boy.”
My brain started screaming protest. Calm down, Helen. Lead Briscoe to the information you want and let him blabber. It’s what he does best. “What really happened?” I sucked the last of my strawberry shake through the straw and placed the empty glass at the edge of the table.
“Baby got snatched. I reckon it’s been on my mind a hell of a lot here lately. Ol’ Aidan threw quite the fuss at the time, said that if he had an option other than a Catholic hospital, that his family would’ve been just fine. Little girl was born shortly after Crevan, within a few minutes. They never even got the chance to hold her before some nurse took off with her, never to be seen again.”
“So naturally, you remembered it when Sofia Datello was abducted.”
“Sure,” Briscoe nodded slowly. “There ain’t many old timers like me left on the force these days, Helen, but what happened was so similar, we couldn’t ignore it. Only difference was that your baby thief this time didn’t have the common sense to up and disappear with the kid like that first gal did.”
“What do you remember about her? That nurse that stole Crevan’s sister, I mean.”
“I remember that she was new to town, only worked at the hospital for a couple of weeks before she snatched the kid and disappeared. As I recall, she wasn’t the most comely gal we’d ever seen either. Sorta fat and frumpy, kind of woman that couldn’t get a kid the normal way.”
