by LS Sygnet
“For now at least,” Johnny muttered under his breath.
He raised one foot and slammed it against the door. The frame splintered, and the deadbolt popped out of the cheap wood holding it in place. Johnny and Devlin pulled their weapons and slipped inside the apartment.
“Office of the Special Investigator,” Johnny announced. “Lyle Henderson, we’re here to serve a search warrant.”
Silence.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Devlin said.
“Hit the lights. He should be on the other side of the room, on the sofa.”
Devlin shined a flashlight along the wall by the splintered door and flicked the light switch. The room was bathed in a soft white glow.
Johnny stalked across the empty expanse toward the sofa. “Son of a bitch.”
“Is he there?”
“Take a look for yourself,” Johnny said. He already had his phone out dialing. “Hey, Ken, it’s Johnny Orion. Hate to bother you again so early, but we’ve got another case we’d like CSD to process for us.”
Devlin drifted over to the windows. “He might’ve seen someone watching him from here, Johnny,” he called over his shoulder.
“Uh-huh.”
In the reflection in the glass, Devlin watched Johnny pull down the lower eyelid on Lyle Henderson’s corpse. “Petechial hemorrhaging?”
“I’m no medical examiner, but that’s what it looks like to me.” Johnny peeled Henderson’s lips back gently. “And that little flap of skin that connects the lips to the gums is torn, top and bottom. He’s got blood pooled in his mouth.”
“Somebody smothered him and he fought back.”
Johnny cursed softly. “They’ll need to bag his hands. There could be blood and skin under his fingernails.”
“Or maybe he couldn’t get to any soft tissue under that expensive suit Levine was wearing,” Devlin said.
Johnny had his phone out again.
Devlin listened, cringing at the angry words spoken.
“If you breathe so much as a single word of this to Helen, I will see to it that you’re fired, Maya.”
Dev heard her raised voice for only a moment before Johnny continued. “Lyle Henderson is dead. I want you here to pick up the body. I want his autopsy done immediately. Not a word of this to anybody, Maya. I mean it. This is my wife’s safety we’re talking about, and if you care about her as much as I think you do, you’ll understand how serious this is. Somebody is getting rid of the evidence. Helen is evidence.”
No more yelling, but Maya clearly was talking again. Johnny listened in silence. “Well, I never thought about that, but you’re right. If she’s evidence, so is Crevan. And before you start railing at me, no, he’s not here, he knows nothing about this, and I’d rather keep it that way at least for the time being.”
Johnny glanced at his watch. “It’s almost six right now. I’ll still be here when you arrive. We can discuss it then. Forsythe is already on his way with a team to process the crime scene.”
When he stuffed his phone back into his pocket, Devlin chuffed out a grunt. “It complicates everything, doesn’t it? How she wormed her way into everybody’s affections.”
“It really does,” Johnny said. “Which is why this is so hard, believe me. She certainly hasn’t done anything to really inspire so much loyalty. She lies. When she’s not lying, she’s secretive. She gets angry and cuts people out of her life. You can’t get anything from her unless she’s backed into a corner and has no other option but to trust somebody else, and even then, she never shares quite everything, does she?”
“How do you plan to keep Crevan out of this?”
“I think it’s time I ask him to camp out and stand guard over my very deceitful wife.”
“And if she ropes him into helping her go off and close this case on her own?”
“Between Helen, Wendell and Danny Datello, I’m sure she’s already off figuring everything out on her own anyway. Did I mention that she went back out to Dunhaven and questioned Jerry Lowe again?”
“Twice,” Devlin grinned.
“At least if I’ve got Crevan with her, I know at least one person with some actual legal authority can prevent things from getting out of control.”
“We hope,” Devlin said.
Johnny’s phone rang again.
“What is it?” he paused and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. “Keep him from coming up. I’ll be right down.”
“Levine?”
Johnny nodded. “Stay here with the body until CSD and Winslow arrive. I’m getting answers from Levine. One way or another.”
I clicked off the call and shoved the phone into the back pocket of my jeans. Fingers of light barely stretched over the eastern sky.
“We have to go now, Danny.”
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
One eyebrow arched.
Datello cursed. “Helen, I don’t like this. Maybe we should wait for Orion to come back and tell us what’s going on. Why in God’s name would you trust a single thing that David Levine tells you?”
“Because Johnny is trying to cut me out of this investigation, and you and I both know that he’s on the wrong track. If David hadn’t called, I’d have no idea what’s going on.”
“If he told you the truth. And why in the world would Johnny have a whole block on Hennessey Island sealed off, even to the FBI?”
“Because he listened to you and to Dad and to me when we got paranoid about David lying to me about you and Franchetta and just about everything else my wild imagination could conceive. Whatever made him suspect David is simply flat out wrong.”
Datello crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh really? It no longer concerns you that he lied about me, that he lied about Franchetta, that whatever Seleeby said might be laced with more than just a little bit of fact?”
“Of course it concerns me,” I said grimly. “We’ve just got a bigger problem right now. And if Johnny is transferring his concerns about David to this case, to my infant abduction and human trafficking through Darkwater Bay, he’s missed the biggest clue of all.”
“That the guy has some sort of personal investment in the city, which Levine doesn’t have.”
“I can’t let whatever he’s really up to be the reason this bastard slips through our fingers again. I won’t. Now are you coming or not? I promise you, if Crevan gets here before we’re gone, he’ll stop me.”
“He let you go to Henderson’s apartment earlier,” Danny argued.
“Let,” I snorted. “He had to run to catch up with me. Don’t get me wrong. He’s my brother and I adore him, but… well, let’s just say he’s got too much heart to have much backbone.”
“What a cold thing to say,” Crevan said.
I startled and stared at the doorway to the butler’s pantry.
“Crevan –”
“Save it, Helen. It’s nice to know that you and Johnny finally agree on something. Too bad it’s a low opinion of me.”
“You misunderstood,” Danny said. “Helen doesn’t want to drag you into this battle between her and Orion. We both know he’ll be livid when he finds out she’s off working this case after he sent you to make sure she didn’t do it.”
“And if you tell him I was gone when you got here, you won’t be involved,” I slid easily into Danny’s quick lie.
“I’m already involved, like it or not. Devlin Mackenzie is back, Helen. Johnny’s had him working some very quiet search since he got back into town.”
“When did he get here?”
“Around the time I got you home. Didn’t Johnny tell you?”
“I haven’t spoken to him since he kicked me out of his crime scene. Dammit! What the hell is going on tonight? And how do you know that Dev’s back?”
“I got a call from Briscoe on my way over here. He wanted to know what the hell was going on, why every division was asked to send officers to Hennessey Island to barricade another city block and spe
cifically, to bar all entry except for Chris Darnell. He figured I was down there in the thick of things, but when he arrived, he saw Devlin.”
“Jesus,” I said. “He really doesn’t trust me.”
“Have you given him much of a reason?” Crevan asked coldly.
“I suppose I haven’t.”
“So how is Johnny wrong about all of this?”
Since Crevan caught me before I could slip away, I saw no reason to rush out now. “He’s not looking for someone with deep roots in Darkwater Bay,” I explained. In tandem, Danny and I rehashed our brainstorming session in the middle of the night. “All this stuff that I attributed to Lowe, it might not have been him at all. Think about it Crevan. Dad was right when he said that you don’t schmooze your way into a police academy. How the hell would I know that? The FBI sought me out, not the other way around.”
“True,” he mused. “Rodney was a few years younger than us. I don’t remember him from his early days with the department, plus he started out with Bay View Division.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Hmm,” Crevan nodded. “That much I remember clearly. It was after all, Dad’s ultimate slap in the face.”
“Aidan?” I echoed. “What in the world does he have to do with anything? I thought he hated your career in public service.”
“He did. Of course he made his digs in other ways, Helen. Our biological father is not a nice human being. Basically, he hides his cruelty in the shadow of Christ’s cross. It justifies everything he’s ever done.”
“What did he do?” Danny asked. “I was living out on Hennessey Island when Bay View opened its satellite on the island. As I recall, your father helped with the fundraising to outfit some of the more modern police surveillance equipment. He even deigned to allow some of us less than savory types to contribute to the projects that solicited donations.”
“Oh yes,” Crevan nodded. “But that was before I was even out of high school. What Dad did when Rodney took his post in Bay View was announce to the world how proud he was of this upstanding young man, that Rodney was the future of the Darkwater Bay police department.”
The creeping unease settled again at the nape of my neck. I didn’t like what Crevan was saying, didn’t like what it implied, recalled with crystal clear clarity how Aidan Conall threw his weight around in January and told me my time in Darkwater Bay was finite. No. I didn’t like where my thoughts were going one little bit.
Chapter 36
Helen learned to keep secrets from a very early age. Only when Wendell taught her to be private and circumspect, it was never with the intention of instilling paranoia or mistrust of the whole world. He simply wanted her to be guarded with Marie.
He had his reasons.
And he didn’t need DNA testing to fortify what his gut had known for nearly 39 years. Marie Eriksson had never given birth to his child. He wondered then. It was simply his tender heart where all children were concerned that made him brush that knowledge aside and accept the beautiful baby placed in his arms that sunny June day as his.
The irony was, Helen didn’t belong to either one of them, but she was still better off with Wendell than she would’ve been with her biological father.
There were a great many things Wendell shared with Helen when she was a child that he probably should’ve kept to himself. To keep her safe, he made sure she understood what they used to call stranger danger. He couched horror stories within fairytales he devised to amuse her. Those lessons were important. She needed to learn that while it’s fine to hope for the best, one should always be prepared for the worst.
Perhaps he over-prepared her.
Wendell donned his priestly frock and stretched his neck to slip the clerical collar into place. He’d had the small radio in his apartment at Saint Agnes Parish rectory on all night. No news was good news.
Oh sure, the third murder on Hennessey Island had been reported, with the sketchiest of details. Either the fourth hadn’t been uncovered yet, or Johnny was keeping Lyle Henderson’s demise under tight wraps. He suspected the latter.
That son in law of his was no slouch. Wendell saw a darker side to Orion, one that was hard not to admire, but at the same time, concerned him. Helen was on a slippery slope. He knew it as well as she did.
Timing was everything. He had to get into Bay County Correctional before news broke that Lyle Henderson was dead. He had to be the first one to break that little nugget of news to a certain someone. Necessity aside, Wendell was itching to see the reaction to the news, desperate for the result that would identify the man he’d seen last night after the unplanned moment of self defense on a rooftop.
He’d gone to Hanging Gardens with every intention of beating the truth out of Lyle Henderson if he had to. If the knowledge that Wendell had prevented an assassin from slaughtering him wasn’t enough to pry the truth out of the phony bastard, maybe a split lip would do the trick. Lyle was a coward after all.
The workman’s clothing allowed him to move unquestioned through the building. He took the service elevator to the tenth floor and made his way through the back hallway where closets housed mechanical devices that were stored out of sight and out of mind for the well-to-do aged folks living in the building.
But when he reached the doorway to the residential hallway and started to exit, he rethought the strategy, and slipped back inside. He left the door open just a crack and peered through at a tall, thin man with dark hair who wiped the inside and outside of one of the doorknobs to an apartment before he closed the door, straightened his tie and strode casually down the hallway, as if some odd form of OCD dictated his behavior every time he left home.
Wendell thought it beyond odd. In fact, it raised his suspicious hackles to the nth degree. He set his toolbox down and pulled a pair of workmen’s gloves out of his back pocket. Donning them, he retrieved a lock pick from the toolbox and made his way to the door. 1024. It was Henderson’s apartment.
Swiftly, Wendell slid the pick into the flimsy lock and giggled it. The tumbler gave way. Without missing a beat, he stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind him.
There was no movement, no commotion across the street yet, nothing that betrayed that anything was amiss. At least nothing was amiss outside the apartment. Wendell stood in the pitch blackness and waited for his eyes to acclimate. After a few moments, it was clear that there was nothing obstructing his immediate path.
He closed his eyes and remembered what he’d seen from his vantage point earlier when he watched Lyle from the building across the street. The layout refreshed in his mind, Wendell began making his way methodically through the apartment. Nothing in the kitchen. Empty bedroom. Bathroom was the blackest room of all.
Dammit! Had the assassin showed up for nothing? He was about to give up on his quest when the arm flung over the side of the sofa caught his attention. Wendell approached cautiously. Lyle was older than dirt. He could simply be napping.
But who was the visitor wiping away fingerprints? Why would Lyle fall asleep while someone was in his apartment?
Wendell moved closer, feet gliding quietly over the marble-style floor. He stared down at the body on the sofa. Lyle’s eyes were slightly parted, his lips bruised. The pillow under his head was tucked in a manner that produced an odd angle, like it had been placed there as an afterthought, perhaps after it was used to smother the old bastard.
“Shit,” Wendell spoke, eerily into the too quiet space. “The bastard must’ve been watching. He must’ve known his assassin failed, so he did the job himself.”
The anticipated satisfaction leeched out of Wendell as he stared down at one of the men responsible for so much misery. Only the sounds of approaching sirens snapped him out of his thoughts and prompted his hasty retreat from the apartment.
That was when he headed to Helen’s house, to see how long it would be before the body was discovered, to lie if needed, and place himself far away from Hennessey Island.
Now the advantage was his ag
ain, as long as he got to the county jail before the press trumpeted the news that a fourth murder victim was found on Hennessey Island during the night.
He tucked the small, but never opened Holy Bible prop under his arm and left the rectory. Wendell slid behind the wheel of the old black sedan parked in the alley behind the parish and breathed a wish into the universe. “Let me protect her, just one more time.”
The plates on the car were stolen from one nearly identical to it in Montgomery. Wendell planned to visit the jail, but until last night, had no idea what ruse would grant him entry. Lyle’s death was the perfect excuse.
Inside the jail, he was met with courtesy and respect. He smiled benevolently. The priest gig wasn’t a bad choice in a city so steeped in the Catholic faith. Nobody questioned his presence or doubted his intentions.
All that would change the moment he uttered the name of the prisoner he came to visit. It had to. She was notorious these days.
“I’m here on a sensitive matter, officer,” Wendell said to a large man wearing an identification badge that named him Officer Saul Becker.
“Oh? How can I assist you, Father?”
“Melissa Sherman’s father has died. I was sent by the parish in Montgomery to not only give her the news, but provide spiritual counsel.”
Saul frowned. “Wasn’t aware she had any family other than the dead bastard she was married to.” His face flushed crimson a moment after he spoke. “Beg pardon, Father. It’s just that the man was part of a pretty horrific crime.”
“He’s at God’s mercy now, my son,” Wendell said before making the sign of the cross. “And while Mrs. Sherman must account to man for her crimes, God’s mercy is always available to any who repent. Christ said, judge not, that ye be not judged.”
“Of course,” the officer said. “Would you like to see her in one of the visiting rooms?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m accustomed to ministering to men and women in their cells. This isn’t my first visit to a jail or a prison.”
