Cloaked in Blood (2 page)

“I did?”

“Yes.  We’ll fill you in when you get
back.”

I hung up the phone and stared at
Johnny.

“This is good news, Helen.”

“Does OSI still have the voice mail
recording Stefano supplied after Danny’s last motion for a
continuance?”

“I’m sure it’s still with the case
information on the abduction,” Johnny said.

“But do we have access to it?”

“We do now,” Johnny grinned. 

My mind started grinding out
possibilities.  “This could be their fatal mistake,
Johnny.  They wanted us to assume that the threat against
Celeste and her child came from Uncle Sully.  He had no idea
that the testimony against him from Franchetta was backed up by
documentation from Danny.  But someone else assumed…”

Our eyes met.

Johnny sobered instantly.

“Someone who had knowledge of our case
against Datello, Helen.  Someone with inside access.  We
never released information to anybody about the contents of that
disk, or the reason Datello had David Ireland assassinated in the
first place.  The only charges we filed against him were based
on the attempted murders at Crime Scene Division, the way he
stormed the facility because he believed we had evidence
implicating him in another crime.”

“Surely you aren’t suggesting that someone
in the department –”

He cut me off with a simple scowl.

“Okay, I didn’t really think we had more bad
apples to weed out of the barrel.”

“No, but there is one person who knew that
Datello committed the crime, Helen.  One man who spent nearly
two decades bluffing with that information, holding it over
Datello’s head.  He knew.”

“
Jerry Lowe?
  Johnny, that’s the
most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  Lowe was
bluffing.  He had no idea what Ireland found out about
Datello.  He only made an assumption that Danny had a secret
that he’d pay any price to keep quiet.”

“Then how else would anybody know?”

I stared at him hard. 

“Well, what?  Helen –”

“Southerby knew what Danny was looking for,
Johnny.  He also had access to Jerry Lowe for months before we
discovered that his identity as Administrator Sykes was phony.”

“Didn’t David say that they believed
Southerby was this deep throat character that initiated contact
with the bureau when they first started getting information that
someone had details on where the bodies were buried?”

I nodded.  “We assumed that Danny was
the one providing that information, not Mitch Southerby.  But
it begs another question, Johnny.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Where was Southerby for all the years you
thought he was dead?  What was he doing?  Who was he
working for?  How did he manage to stay alive and off
everyone’s radar?”

Johnny dragged one hand over his face. 
“He’ll never talk, Helen.  He hasn’t spoken to anybody but his
attorney since his arrest in December.”

“Somebody knows the answer to those
questions.”

“Yeah, Datello, but he’s conveniently
dead.”

My memory drifted back several weeks to my
visit to Wendell at Attica the day that he was liberated from
prison. 
I was the third cop to show up to see Dad. 
Johnny was one.  I assumed David was the second.  Who was
it really?

“Helen?”

“Do you still have that throw away cell
phone you bought this morning?” I asked absently.

Johnny’s head jerked toward the discarded
bag on the kitchen table.  “You want to talk to him
now
?”

My jaw set tightly.  “It’s not a matter
of want, Johnny.  I think it’s high time my father and I had a
real conversation, a completely honest one for a change.”

Chapter 2

I dialed the eighteen digit phone number for
the second time that day.  It barely rang.  “Helen?”

Breath pushed past my lips.  “Sorry it
took me so long to get back to you.  It’s been a little
unpredictable around here today.”

“Are you all right?”

“Why would you ask me that, Dad?  You
wouldn’t by any chance know what’s going on in Darkwater Bay today,
would you?”

He laughed.  “Darling, it’s been all
over CNN, and I have to confess, given my lack of exposure to media
of most types over the past several years, I’ve become somewhat of
a news junkie.  You look magnificent by the way.  It
seems that young man of yours is taking good care of you.”

I groaned.  “You saw me on CNN?”

“I was paying attention, Helen.  You
have to admit, a crime scene is no place for a pregnant woman,
specifically not the one who happens to be carrying my
grandsons.”

“Dad…”

“Sorry, my dear.  I’m still rather
bowled over by the good news this morning.  Did you tell
Johnny that we’d already spoken?”

I cringed.  “Yes.”

“Good.  I hoped you weren’t still
keeping secrets from him, and despite the reasons for the delay in
your call back, I presumed that the longer it took for you to
return the call, the greater the odds that you shared with him the
details of our conversation.”

“I didn’t exactly.”

“Is your phone capable of conferencing
Johnny into the call?” Dad asked.

“You mean the speaker function?”

He chuckled.  “I’m a bit lost with the
capabilities of these devices, Sprout.  It’s been a long time,
and technology has marched on without me I’m afraid.”

“Hold on.”  I engaged the speaker
function and laid the phone down on the counter.  “We’re both
here, now, Dad.”

“Good.  Commander Orion, my
congratulations to you,” Wendell said.  “Helen looks radiant,
and I’m pleased to see her happy.”

Johnny’s arm curled around my waist. 
“Thank you, sir, but –”

“Yes, you’re not exactly inviting me into
your lives with open arms.  I’d imagine that would be
difficult to explain on a good day.  As I was telling Helen,
I’ve been watching CNN’s international coverage of Darkwater Bay
tonight.  Do you really think it’s wise to have my daughter at
a crime scene in her condition?”

“Dad, I called because we need to finish our
conversation about Lyle Henderson.”

“And I already told you Helen, I know very
little about the man, except that he was a lunatic.  I surmise
that dementia has not improved his disposition.”

Johnny chuckled.  “He’s not demented,
sir.”

“Call me Wendell.  As I recall, you had
no such difficulty the last time we met, commander.”

“Dad, when I visited you at Attica, the
guard told me –”

“Which guard?”

Fingers gouged into my temples. 
“Tipton?  Tilden?”

“Timmons,” Dad said.  “What about
him?  He was a rather decent fellow to me over the years,
Helen.  I’d hate to learn at this late date that he managed to
deceive me.”

“He said that I was the third member of law
enforcement to visit you.”

Wendell fell silent.

“Dad?”

“You know that Johnny came, Helen.”

“Yes, and I was there, even though they
believed I was Thomas Peterson.”

“That’s correct.”

“Then who was the third cop that visited
you?”

Silence returned.

“Dad, this is no time for you to –”

“It was the FBI Helen, the
real
FBI.  They came because this character who was harassing you
had contact with a guard who wasn’t quite so good to me over the
years and kept people informed when I had visitors.”

“Seleeby,” Johnny growled.  “That’s how
David knew I visited Wendell when we spoke last December.”

“No, that wasn’t his name,” Wendell
said.  “Older gentleman, tried for distinguished looking, but
clearly wasn’t to the bureau’s standard of fitness, darker hair
–”

Johnny’s gaze locked with mine. 
“Shorter than you, Wendell?”

“Good gracious, no,” he chuckled.  “The
man had a good inch or so on me.  Said his name was Noah
something.  I can’t recall really, and I never spoke a word to
him, simply called for Mike Lucero to take me back to my
cell.  Now
he
got a piece of my mind, the son of a
bitch.”

“Dad, you’re sure –”

“I’m not losing my faculties, Helen. 
I’m certain.  He came to see me approximately one month after
Johnny’s visit.  Honestly, I figured that the FBI would show
up much sooner after… well, after their case against Mr. Marcos
became so solid.  I fully expected someone to blabber about
Johnny’s visit before he hit the parking lot.”

“This Lucero character,” Johnny said.

“Yes.  Mike quite resented the fact
that I was kept in segregation throughout my stay in upstate New
York.  It infuriated him when the moratorium on the death
penalty was put into place.  Johnny, I’m not sure if you’re
aware, but my sentence –”

“Helen told me,” Johnny said.  “I can’t
believe that the prosecutor’s office ignored the overwhelming
evidence that pointed to Marie Henderson as the mastermind behind
that armored car robbery ring, Wendell.  Your fingerprints
weren’t anywhere to be found on the spoils of the last heist, and
she was driving the vehicle.”

“Well, it would’ve left a stain on the
Eriksson name that would’ve been difficult for Helen to
overcome.  It’s one thing to have a father in prison. 
It’s another entirely to have one who beat the rap, so to
speak.  I knew the risks of going along with Marie’s lunacy,
but I had little choice in the matter, not if I wanted Helen to
continue to be safe and happy.”

“They threatened
me
?”

Wendell chuckled.  “Only once
seriously.  It was the last thing she ever did.”

“Daddy…” I snatched up the phone and
disengaged the speaker.  “What did she say?  How did she
threaten me?  I thought that she tried to kill you that
night.”

“Oh she did.  Only it wasn’t a threat,
it was an attempt on me when she realized that I wasn’t going to
play along with her little side venture anymore.  She
threatened you, Helen.  And then she swerved toward the
guardrail.”

“How did she threaten me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.  “There
was no way I was going to allow her to harm you, or anything she
could’ve ever done that would’ve come close to endangering your
life.”

Anger boiled into the periphery of my
vision.  “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter, Dad!  It seems
to me that it matters a great deal.  Or have you forgotten
that someone thought they were going to
sell
me as recently
as a few weeks ago, and told me that it wouldn’t be the first time
I’d been
sold
.  Hasn’t it occurred to you that I was
the mechanism put in place to keep
you
in line?”

Wendell fell silent.

“I love you, Daddy, and I’d have done
anything to protect you.  I risked my freedom, my marriage, my
life
to undo a wrong that was done long ago, one I should’ve
never allowed to happen.  Can you for one second tell me that
you love me even a speck more than I love you?”

“No, of course not, darling.  I’m not
saying that at all,” he said.

“Then how did she threaten me?”

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Helen. 
Marie…she simply felt that my lack of cooperation should be
punished by telling you the truth about me.  She thought –
mistakenly, I might add – that if you knew all of my sins, that our
relationship would be permanently severed.  She had no idea
that I would willingly cut all ties to you to protect you from what
we had become.”

I needed to see him – or more aptly, my
human lie detector husband needed to see him.  “Are you
telling me the truth, Dad?  Or has this whole thing been more
lies –”

“I have never lied to you!”

“No?”  Bitterness crept into my
voice.  “You told me all along about your little illegal
business on the side, away from the NYPD?”

“That’s different, and you damn well know
it.  I wasn’t out indiscriminately breaking the law,
Sprout.  And when you asked me weeks ago, I told you the
truth.  I’m not proud that there were times that I took money
for what I did, but it was never more than required to get the job
done and cover my tracks.  Everything I did was to protect
you, to make the world a safer place for
you
and for scores
of children who didn’t have parents who gave a damn either way if
their children were safe.”

“How many like Thomas Peterson, Dad?”

“What?”

“How many did you remove to a better life
like you did Thomas Peterson?  Did you sell him?”

I heard his swiftly indrawn breath. 
“I’m not sure I like what you seem to be accusing here, Helen.”

Moisture dotted the fringe of lower
lashes.  “Daddy, you have to tell me the truth.  Did you
have anything to do with my abduction as an infant, with the
abduction and slavery of –”

“Stop right there,” Wendell demanded. 
“You know as well as I do the fate of children sold into slavery,
Helen.  That you could think for even
one second
that I
would be part of something so vile…”

We breathed heavily into each other’s ears
for several drawn out moments.  “I’m sorry,” I finally broke
the silence.  “I had to ask.  I had to be…”

“Certain?”

“I was always certain.  I guess I just
needed to hear you deny it, Daddy.  I knew about some of the
kids you helped.  I couldn’t believe that you’d ever be part
of this.”

“Honey, I know.  I’m sorry that you’re
in a position where you felt you needed to ask.  I wish I’d
been a better father, one who never disappointed you, who guided
you to a different way of life than the one you’ve had.”

“No. 
No
.  I wouldn’t have
wanted anyone else, Daddy.  I love you so much.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Helen, and I’m not
lying now.  Have I broken the law?  Yes.  Did I
deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life?  Of course I
did, but not for the reason I was convicted.  That crime was
Marie’s.  It was simply more expedient to take the blame than
to see you suffer more than you already were when the whole thing
came to light.”