Cloaked in Blood (4 page)

“Could he be the one that killed
Sanderfield?” Devlin asked the question that had frankly been
nagging in the back of my head since I found out the man was
dead. 

“I doubt it.  You were there when we
talked about the method of execution, Devlin,” Johnny said. 
“Hell, you agreed with Chris.  That hit was so precise.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “Military sniper
precise.  Or spook.  Don’t suppose the CIA could be
involved in this.”

I laughed.  “Why not?  We’ve got
every other branch of law enforcement in the mix.”

“Helen, I was serious,” Devlin said. 
“Frankly, it scares me to think we’ve got someone with that kind of
deadly accuracy running around Darkwater Bay.  He could take
anybody out from a thousand yards away, and we’d never catch
him.  None of us is safe.”

It was time for a little history lesson, and
not the kind that Tony Briscoe could supply about Darkwater
Bay.

“Have you ever dealt with an assassin
before, Dev?” I asked.  My eyes roved to Crevan, to
Johnny.  “Any of you?”

“Helen, I think it’s pretty clear that the
closest any of us have come to someone of that particular pathology
is Mitch Southerby,” Johnny said.

“Southerby,” I scoffed.  “He killed
people up close.  At the bureau, we stopped calling true
assassins like the one who killed Sanderfield
snipers
. 
They’re long distance serial killers.  Highly skilled,
detached, shadows.  These people haven’t heard of the grid,
and forget radar.  We’ll never find him because he’s long
gone.  He was a ghost before the police showed up at the crime
scene.  Sanderfield’s security team didn’t see anything or
anybody because he made the shot and disappeared.  He could’ve
walked right up to them after it happened and they wouldn’t have
known it.  But he wouldn’t do that.  He made the hit and
moved on.  That’s what they do.  That’s how they
operate.  They answer to no one.  They live
nowhere.  They’re tethered to nothing.”

“Then how the hell does somebody go about
finding such a guy to hire him?”

I shrugged.  “Soldier of Fortune
magazine.  Underground methods of communications.  You
know somebody who’s a friend of a friend who heard of a guy. 
The price of a hit like that would be astronomical.  We’re not
talking about services for hire to a disillusioned housewife.”

“Okay,” Crevan said.  “That’s
helpful.  We’re looking for somebody with money, somebody well
connected.”

“I’d agree.  The person who hired the
LDSK had to be in that elusive one percent of wealth.”

Devlin frowned and took the conversation in
another direction.  “We think we have a leak but can’t prove
it.”

“Meaning?” Johnny asked.

“Isn’t that what the two of you realized
when Levine told you that Marcos had no idea that Datello was the
one turning on him?  He thinks it’s Franchetta.  Now he
thinks Franchetta’s the one who embezzled all that money.”

“And he’s probably right,” I said. 
“But, I think I see where you’re going with this, Devlin.  If
somebody knew why Datello killed David Ireland, and knew that the
feds weren’t using that information against Sully Marcos, then we
certainly have a leak somewhere.”

“Not on our end,” Johnny said.

“Maybe.  Maybe not.”

They stared at me again,
dumbfounded. 

“There is conceivably one other person who
knew about Danny’s involvement in something incriminating Sully
Marcos who isn’t a cop.” It was a tenuous thread, but there
nonetheless.

“Southerby,” Johnny growled.

“Yes.  So in addition to finding out
who visited Dad at Attica, wouldn’t it behoove us to find out who
Southerby has been talking to other than his attorney?”

“His attorney could be the leak,” Johnny
suggested.

I disagreed.  “If Southerby’s lawyer
knows anything, you can bet your ass that Marcos would know it
too.  Marcos is still pinning the whole thing on
Franchetta.”  I glanced at Johnny.  “I’m pretty sure
Marcos believes that Franchetta’s been lying to him all
along.  Especially since the murder weapon used to kill my
ex-husband was found in a waste management plant Sully owned.”

Johnny’s fists clenched.  “That’s a
point I hadn’t considered, Doc.”

“I’m missing something,” Crevan frowned.

“We’re pretty sure that Franchetta was
following Hamilton at Sully’s request,” Johnny said.  “He
likely observed a suicide and took the gun, thinking they might use
it as a tool to frame someone else after Hamilton’s body was
discovered.”

“But that missing weapon would make it look
like a murder, not suicide,” Devlin said.

Crevan was staring at me.  “And that’s
exactly what Special Agent Mark Seleeby thought,” he said. 
“So Franchetta kept the gun Rick used to kill himself, thinking
that he could somehow leverage something from Helen if the FBI
investigated her for the murder.”

“Which they did,” I said.

“Ah hell,” Devlin shook his head. 
“They were bound and determined to use you one way or another,
weren’t they?”

“I’m not so sure that Marcos isn’t
still
angling for some way to use her,” Johnny
growled.  “Over my dead –”

“
Don’t
say that,” I
interrupted.  The last thing I wanted was Johnny tempting
fate, particularly when the niggling fear of my karmic debt was so
strong.  “I’d rather it be over my dead body than yours.”

Nobody spoke for a long while.  There
was no eye contact, no acknowledgement that what I said was right
or wrong.  Maybe on some level, we all understood that while
people may
think
they are getting away with murder, in the
end, that simply isn’t the truth.

Chapter 4

We needed to find Mike Lucero.  My one
and only conversation with Dad while he was still a guest of Attica
didn’t cover what sort of relationship Dad had with any of the
guards other than Timmons, who was supposedly a good guy.  I
thought about what Dad had to arrange before my brilliant little
jail break plan was set into motion.

It was inconceivable to me that any prison
personnel would knowingly conspire to help him escape.  So
what sort of relationships had Dad cultivated during his near 20
year tenure in prison?  Was it more of a look-the-other-way
type of arrangement?  Special treatment?  Access to a
telephone to make private calls?

For the obvious reasons, the latter seemed
the most likely favor anyone could offer Dad.  He’d need that
privacy to contact anyone on the outside, and the missing corpse
scenario, my father’s remains allegedly being cremated instead of
some other dead man’s, had to come from outside help.  But
who?

And why would Dad all of a sudden take
someone into his confidence to enact such a brilliant ruse? 
Hadn’t he lectured me, after hearing my plan to free him, that I
was involving too many people?  So who would he trust with
something like that?

Johnny strolled through the kitchen and
planted outside the open refrigerator door.  I watched him
peck through the offerings before settling on string cheese. 
The door thudded shut.  Our eyes met.

“You want something?”

The truth, perhaps.  I know me. 
And yes, I’ve come to terms with the reality that I’m not nearly as
enigmatic as I once believed, specifically where Johnny Orion is
concerned.  I suppose a bit of disgust had leached into my
facial expression when he frowned.

“Now what?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“Sorry, sweetheart, but if I’ve done
something wrong, I’m completely and blissfully unaware of it at the
moment.”

“You lied to me, Johnny.”

He paused.  It was like watching his
eyeballs flicker through an invisible file of lies, trying to
figure out which one he told that had suddenly come to my
attention.  It was not a nice realization for me.

“There have been so many that you’re not
sure which one I’ve exposed?”

He grinned.  “There are lies, and then
there are
lies
, Doc.  You know that.  What did I
do?  Claim to have put the toilet seat down with I didn’t
really do it?”

I shook my head.  “Lies and then
lies.  Those are your words.  But I remember many other
things you’ve said to me since we met, Johnny.  And it occurs
to me that Dad’s phone call to you, telling you exactly when and
where you could find me… something about that story just doesn’t
quite gel in my mind.”

“In what way?”

“Don’t ask me like an indulgent husband, and
don’t assume for one second that I haven’t put certain pieces of
this puzzle into place.  You had to know it was only a matter
of time – and it wouldn’t be the first little foray you took into
being an accomplice into something less than legal.”

“Helen, I seriously have no idea what you’re
talking about.”

“You said Dad called you and told you what I
was planning to do when I went to New York.”

Johnny hissed a curse under his breath.

“If you helped him, why the fuck were you so
pissed off at me when –”

“Because you ran away from me,” he
growled.  The half eaten strand of cheese was tossed into the
sink.  Johnny’s large hands manacled my wrists and yanked me
close.  “You gave yourself to me, Helen, and then you lied to
me, walked away, were ready to get on that jet with Wendell and
disappear.”

“I told you it was killing me,” I
said.  “Just the thought of never seeing you again.”

“But you still went up those stairs.”

“Johnny…”

“If I’d known what you were doing, I
would’ve stopped you Helen.  But it was too late without
watching you get arrested and prosecuted for a shitload of
felonies.  It was damage control.  I didn’t
want
to… there was no choice.  Surely you can understand that.”

I sucked in a deep breath.  “This is
important, Johnny.  Exactly how far did you go to help Dad
arrange his death?”

Confusion etched his brow. 
“What?  Helen, I had no idea what he planned to do.  All
I did was make a phone call.”

“To?”

“His old desk sergeant, some guy down in
Clearwater, Florida.”

“And you never thought for a second that he
was up to something?”

“Not with the message he asked me to…”
Johnny’s voice faded suddenly.  “Shit.  He played me
again.”

I couldn’t have suppressed the grin if I
tried.  “He’s good at it, Johnny.  Don’t feel bad. 
Dad was very good at what he did back in the day.  I think I
told you once that my father is a forensics natural, a profiler
without being trained.  He knew he could tap into your
gratitude over his phone call to do whatever he asked.  Now
what was his message?”

“I
thought
he was telling the his
remaining advocate not to be surprised if he didn’t survive
incarceration much longer, that in some strange way, he was telling
me too that he’d sacrifice himself to protect you if need be.”

“Don’t doubt that he would, Johnny. 
But on the other hand, I have a very well-founded fear that Dad
protecting me from the outside is more his style than dying to keep
me safe.”

“So that old desk sergeant must’ve freaked
out and called.”

My eyes widened.  “Or perhaps
he
was really the other law enforcement visitor.”

“No, Helen.  Your father had two
before
you showed up, remember?”

“So this desk sergeant helped make Dad look
like he died?  Why would he do that if he thought Dad was
innocent?”

“Because he not only thought Wendell was
innocent, he was convinced that the man had been wrongfully
imprisoned.”

I groaned.  “We need to talk to Mike
Lucero.  Seriously, Johnny.  I’m not sure Dad was
completely honest with me about who visited him.”

“Let’s ask David.  Surely he won’t hide
how the bureau learned about my visit.  If someone really went
to see Wendell, if the FBI sent a man in, David has no reason to
hide that from us now.”

I shook my head.  “Are you nuts? 
If we start asking David about who visited my father and why, it’ll
shine a spotlight on something we really don’t want them looking at
too closely.”

“Then be sneaky about it, a little less the
David influence and a lot more the Wendell,” Johnny
suggested.  “He said the guy’s name was Noah.  Let’s ask
David if someone by that name is working the Marcos case.”

“He’ll want to know why.  And if that’s
how he found out you visited Attica last fall, it’ll make him
wonder why we’re suddenly concerned with my father’s
visitors.  Let’s not forget that I’m the earliest known
possible victim of these human traffickers in Darkwater Bay, nor
does this case really have a link back to Marcos.”

“Then let me ask.  He’d be more likely
to think we uncovered something in the investigation that I don’t
want to share with you, something that might possibly point a
finger at Wendell as part of this –”

“No!”

“You don’t have to shout,” Johnny
grinned.  “But I wish you’d be objective and think about this
rationally, Helen.  Do you think that we didn’t discuss the
possibility that Wendell was part of your abduction?”

“I know we discussed it,” I scowled at
him.

“Not us, us.  David.  Crevan and
Dev.  We did talk about it.  It was part of the
process.  I’ll tell David that I was going through the old
file and saw some obscure reference to an unknown visitor that
Wendell had, some guy named Noah from the FBI.”

“Can I be part of this conversation?”

“Not if he’s gonna believe that I’m keeping
you specifically in the dark regarding that aspect of the
investigation.”

“Johnny, you can’t do this to me.  I
–”

He pressed one finger over my lips. 
“Shh.  I didn’t say you can’t hear the conversation.  He
just can’t know that you’re listening.  Can you stay calm
enough to do that?”