by LS Sygnet
Cagey bastard. He’d been letting Henderson visit, just waiting for me to draw the proper conclusion and show up to ask more questions.
Jerry Lowe was probably my karmic curse.
Chapter 24
I hit my favorite bakery on the way home. Traffic was barely out along Bay View Drive by the time I finished chatting with Jerry Lowe. Fiona and her crew had an especially tasty treat delivered to them, courtesy of me, for getting me on and off the unit without Johnny’s guard knowing anything unusual happened.
Now if only I could sneak back into the house without a modern day inquisition.
Of course that wasn’t meant to be. Johnny was on the phone in the kitchen barking orders – presumably to Crevan – about a grid search and other extreme measures when I dropped the box of confection onto the breakfast bar. He spun around, and for a moment looked angry enough to strangle me with the telephone cord. At least until he saw the bakery’s logo on the box.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Never mind, Crevan. Apparently, the out of control cravings have just returned, and somebody just forgot to put the anklet back on after her bath yesterday.”
He hung up the phone, and I noticed that Danny was sitting across the room on the sofa. His eyes were round as saucers.
“Oops.”
“Helen, dammit, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Did you think I was taken, or that I was running again?”
“You left the Expedition last time. I should’ve known that it was something like this.”
I opened the box and pulled out a French glazed. “You gonna pour me some milk, or am I on my own this morning?”
“You should’ve woke me before you left. I’d have gone out for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s barely dawn. I can sleep all day. You’re the one burning the candle at both ends. Speaking of which,” I tore off a chunk of fried dough with my teeth, “what’s on the agenda today, dear husband?”
Johnny yanked the refrigerator door open and grabbed the milk. He poured a glass. “I thought I’d talk to our houseguest about his recollections regarding some of his now-deceased employees. And some additional questions I have about Mitch Southerby.”
The milk glass slid across the granite bar. I took a swig and shook my head. “I already talked to him about that yesterday. Danny thinks that Sully kept his fingers in his life whether he wanted it or not.”
“Really,” skepticism dripped from one word.
“Yep, and I don’t doubt it. You and I already discussed the possibility.”
Johnny’s eyes slid over my shoulder. “So you think Sully could be the mastermind of the human trafficking ring too?”
His voice was much closer than the body had been when I noticed it. “I wouldn’t put anything past, Uncle Sully, commander. I doubt Agent Levine would either, since his link to terrorism was exposed.”
“Rather diverse guy, huh?”
“If there’s profit to be made, drugs, terrorism, shady loans, you name it, he’s in,” Danny said. He pointed to the box. “May I, Helen?”
I slid it toward him. “Help yourself. Breakfast is always a self serve proposition when I’m in charge of it.”
Danny reached into the box and came up with a jelly roll. “Celeste was the same way during her first trimester with Sofia Helene. I think I gained twenty pounds just by her cravings tempting me.”
Johnny snorted derisively. “You won’t see me getting soft because of her dietary mood swings.” He came around the island and kissed my forehead. “I’m gonna be at OSI most of the day. I’ll call if we hear any news. Don’t forget to put the anklet back on.”
“Key?” I held out one sticky hand.
“I’ll leave it in the bedroom.”
When he retreated to the shower, Datello casually asked, “So where were you really this morning?”
“Clearly I went to the bakery.”
“Uh-huh. Where else, Helen? Somehow I got the impression that as much as your husband wants to believe you, he doesn’t.”
It was probably true. The relief I saw was that I came home, not that Johnny believed that only a wild urge for pastry propelled me out under cover of darkness.
“I’ve got a suggestion, Helen. If you need to go out during the day when you know he’s watching, let me wear the anklet. He’ll be convinced that you’re here. If he calls, I can answer the phone and claim that you’re napping.”
I chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Why would you do that, Danny?”
He shrugged. “I believe in your way over his. These people, Henderson, whoever else is involved in this mess, they aren’t gonna play by the cop’s rules, so why should the good guys be forced into playing fair? I keep asking myself what Wendell would do.”
“You really don’t want the answer to that question, Datello. My father is not the best example of the good guys.” I framed the last with air quotes.
“Oh really? Who’d he kill, Helen? Somebody that didn’t have it coming?”
Mostly, they were people who the justice system failed to convict. Mostly. There were a select few that Dad didn’t let the jury process gamble on. At least I suspected as much, and I could trace some of his money to families with a vested interest in real justice contributing to the wealth I now enjoyed.
Datello’s voice dropped to a low whisper. “I want this over. I want my wife back. I want my daughter to grow up with a father who isn’t waiting for some killer to come out of the shadows and make her an orphan like one of Uncle Sully’s men did to me. Your way, Wendell’s way, is a hell of a lot better bet. I’m not here because I trust your husband to do the right thing. I’m here because of you. It might’ve taken me awhile to see the truth, Helen, but I get it now. You saved my daughter from a fate worse than death. Now finish the job.”
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number.
“Maya’s Mansion of the Macabre.”
I burst out laughing. “Have you been up all night?”
“Only since two. We got the weirdest call from Bay View Division last night. Hit and run from what I can tell. Probably some drunk on his way home from the casino.”
“They called you for a hit and run?”
She chuckled. “This would be one of the draw backs of sleeping with the head of CSD, pumpkin. When he gets his little spidey sense that something isn’t quite right, I’m number one on his speed dial.”
“Don’t call me pumpkin.”
“You wanna hear what he thought?”
I sighed. So much for a quick status report on the DNA. “Please do. I can tell you’re itching to crow about it anyway.”
“So Bay View gets a call that some guy leaving work got absolutely splattered by some guy in a truck out on the island.”
I sat up straighter. “Hennessey Island?”
“You know of another?”
“Smart ass. Go on.”
“So Ken shows up, thinking they’re gonna get… I don’t know, paint chips off the guy’s clothing or have tread marks rubberized over the concrete. He gets there and what does he find?”
“I don’t know. Apparently this is your tale to tell.”
“Oh yeah, it is,” she chuckled. “It’s just that I so rarely have you as a captive audience that I –”
“Maya, you’re rambling, and losing the audience.”
“Ouch. All right. He gets out to the island and there’s not a single skid mark. Cops tell him that the witness who called it in was some old guy out for his nightly constitutional, and he swears that this motorist sped up and swerved into the victim. Didn’t try to miss him, didn’t stop to see if the guy was all right, nothing.”
“I see. And that made Ken call you because…?”
“The kid who got hit had eighteen thousand dollars in cash in his pocket. Now call me crazy, but I don’t think that the Hanging Gardens Assisted Living pays bonuses to its employees in anywhere near that denomination. Ken figured somebody had a reason to want this kid dead.”
D
ear God. I struggled to tamp down the fear strangling me. “Maya, that’s all very interesting, but what made Ken think this was a case you should investigate?”
“Oh, did I leave that part out? Well, there were no paint chips on the kid, but there was an emblem on his body, Ken figured it was from the vehicle that hit him.”
“And?”
“He called me so we could get to work identifying it for the Bay View cops. It was the emblem from a Cadillac, Helen. Can you believe it? I figure the kid extorted money from some geezer in that retirement high rise out on the island, and one of the rich kids of the geezer mows him down in the Caddy before it can happen again.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds like you nailed it. I take it this means you don’t have an update for me on the DNA, since Nate’s death has your brain all occupied.”
The silence was crisp.
“Maya?”
“What the hell is going on, Helen? I never told you the name of our victim. How did you know his name was Nate?”
Oh, I don’t know. Pregnancy dropping my IQ perhaps?
But Maya wasn’t done. “I’ll be damned. Ken was right. There’s something else going on with this murder, isn’t there? You know about it because OSI is already involved.”
“Maya, I never said that.”
“Huh,” she grunted. “And let me guess. You really can’t say. Don’t worry. I won’t mention this to Ken. But you know, I’m really getting sick and tired of OSI butting in with every case in this city.”
“I promise you, that’s not going to happen this time. Just because they’re aware of everything, it doesn’t mean they plan to investigate. And really, Maya. What would you expect considering what happened less than two blocks away?”
“Well, there is that, I suppose,” she grumbled. “But you didn’t have to let me drone on about it if you already knew everything.”
“What, and kill your story? Not a chance. Now, if you’re done being mad at me for knowing something I shouldn’t know, how’s the other thing progressing?”
“I’ve told you this before, Helen. The science takes as long as the science takes. Billy did bump it to the head of the line, this Sherman and Doe sample. I do know that he was able to successfully extract DNA from the flap of the envelope you provided. We should have a mitochondrial result by the end of the day, but since the other sample was a Juan and not a Juanita, it’ll take longer. I promise to call you immediately on both results.”
I sighed. “I love science, but it’s damn frustrating to wait for the results.”
“Well, you’re lucky you’ve got an in with us, or you’d be waiting weeks for results instead of a couple of days. Now when are we getting together for lunch? Better yet, we could have dinner, the four of us at your place.”
“Now’s not a good time, Maya. Johnny’s incredibly stressed over work, plus the FBI’s still out here working on this Sanderfield thing. But I promise, as soon as things settle down, we’ll have another dinner party.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said.
“Talk to you soon.” I hung up the phone.
Johnny, still damp from his shower stood staring at me.
“Oh for God’s sake, don’t look at me like that. I called her about the DNA results. I’m impatient.”
His right eyebrow twitched. “And what is it you know that you shouldn’t know?”
“Lots of things?”
“Helen…”
“Oh, all right. There was a hit and run accident out on Hennessey Island last night. I heard about it before Maya had the chance to share details not available in the press. She assumed that OSI is involved.”
He shook his head. “I need to head out to the office. Can I trust you to stay out of trouble today?”
I made the ever-ready X over my chest.
Datello waited until Johnny retreated. “Something happened. Something you know but haven’t shared with Orion. What was it?”
“I told you Dad was watching Henderson. Seems somebody driving a Cadillac killed him last night. Bay View is chocking it up to a hit and run. Forsythe figures it might not be that cut and dried. He’s right, dammit.”
“Because?”
“The guy that got hit was found with a rather sizable amount of cash on his person at the crime scene. It just so happens that Nate was the orderly Dad saw Lyle pay off last night, with an envelope stuffed full of cash.”
“You think he’d pay him off and then run him down with a car?”
“Wait until Johnny leaves,” I whispered. “Then we’ll call Dad and see what he thinks about it. If nothing else, he can find out in a hurry if Lyle happens to drive a Cadillac, and if so, if it’s suddenly in the repair shop this morning.”
Chapter 25
Johnny had his cell phone out before he hit the front gate. “She’s up to something again, Crevan.”
“Johnny, you’ve got to stop suspecting her every odd expression. Helen’s –”
“Lying through her teeth like she always does,” Johnny fumed. “That’s twice now, since I insisted that Datello stay at the house, that I’ve caught her whispering to him or having some clandestine phone call. It’s a nightmare. And you know whose fault this is? Wendell’s. If he’d stayed away, none of this would be happening right now.”
“Don’t do this, man. She told you the truth about where he is. She admitted that Datello is still alive. Don’t assume that she’s all of a sudden keeping secrets again.”
Johnny hit the gas in the Crown Victoria and sped down the street. “It’s more than that. How dumb does she really think I am? She was gone for at least an hour before I called you. And she conveniently forgot to put the ankle monitor back on. She disconnected the automatic garage door opener so she wouldn’t make so much noise creeping out in the middle of the night, and then she expects me to believe she craved pastries?”
“Johnny, she did come home with a box of donuts.”
“From a bakery that opened about twenty minutes before she got home. So where was she in the meantime?”
“Where do you think she was?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“Wendell?” Crevan asked.
“Maybe I should insist that he stay at the house too. Easier to keep tabs on all three of them if I’ve got them sequestered in the same place. Better yet, I could lock the three of them in the house while I’m gone.”
Crevan laughed. “You really think that stunt would work on a man like Wendell Eriksson?”
“I doubt it. She was on the phone with Maya when I got out of the shower. Something happened last night, a murder, and Helen knew about it before Maya told her. She claims that she heard it on the news, buddy, but I know my wife. She avoids news like the plague. Won’t read a paper. Falls asleep when I turn on the nightly news. As for the radio in the Expedition, I doubt she’s ever turned it on.”
“You think Wendell killed somebody already?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. Do me a favor would you? Do a little digging and see if anything interesting happened anywhere in Darkwater Bay last night. Better yet, rather than make it an official inquiry from OSI, call Tony Briscoe and see if he’s in the mood to gossip this morning.”
“You’re not coming in this morning?”
“Not yet,” Johnny said. “I thought I’d make an unscheduled appearance in Fielding this morning, see if there’s been any unusual activity out at Dunhaven.”
Crevan groaned, “Don’t tell me you think Helen went over there to talk to Jerry Lowe again.”
“She flat out told me she wanted to see him, Crevan. If I have to interrogate everyone at Dunhaven to find out if she was there this morning, I’ll do it.”
“I thought you said you were done digging for the truth where Helen is concerned.”
Johnny’s jaw set grimly. “And I meant it. She’s made it abundantly clear that she can’t change. What she does after the boys are born is… well, it’s her choice, but until that day comes, somebody has to look out for their saf
ety. It seems to be my responsibility now.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, “I really do.”
Wendell arrived within an hour of my frantic call. If he did something to Nate whoever-he-was, I would be livid. We needed these people alive, if we ever wanted to get to the bottom of this conspiracy that was consuming my life bit by bit.
He walked into the kitchen under two intense stares.
“What? Have I broken the code of our alliance somehow?”
“You tell me, Dad. What time did you stop watching Lyle Henderson last night?”
“I stuck around for about an hour after we got off the phone. Lyle watched television for awhile, made some notes on a legal pad, with his bible open, I might add, and retired before nine. I was on my way back to my post on the adjacent rooftop this morning when I got your call.”
“Then you didn’t see this orderly Nate leave work last night?” Datello asked.
“No, of course not. I was gone long before the young man’s shift ended.”
“Ah-ha!” my finger stabbed the air. “So you did learn about Nate’s routine last night!”
“I made a call to the assisted living when I got back to Saint Agnes last night, Helen. The pretense was that I’m looking into a senior community for my ailing mother and concerned that there is staff on duty at all times to assist the frail when they need it.”
“What did they tell you?” Danny piped up again.
“They assured me that they are fully staffed around the clock, no short shifts, that there are three caregivers assigned per each floor of the complex, except for the main level, which if I understand their lingo correctly, has twice the number of attendants plus registered nurses, as those with the most physical needs reside there. They do some sort of physical rehab on top of everything else. I think we got into the wrong line of work, Sprout. The people running this place are making a killing. The cheapest level of care they offer is fifteen grand a month, not counting the cost for medication management or meal preparation in the suite if someone wants those options.
