Cloaked in Blood (5 page)

I nodded.  “I won’t say a word, I
swear.”

“A real promise, not the kind where you
simply make an X over your heart while your eyes scream
suckers
at anybody naïve enough to believe that equates
giving your word.”

I rolled my eyes.  All this time, and
he’d seen through me even when I thought I was so cleverly
enigmatic.  “Yes, a real promise.  You want to put some
duct tape on my mouth for good measure first, or are you gonna make
the call?”

Johnny slid his arms around my waist and
hugged me.  “I didn’t really lie to you, Helen.”

Yeah, and I’d never really lied to him
either. 

He chuckled softly.  “I told you the
truth when I said I wasn’t part of his skillful cover of his prison
escape – at least, not knowingly.  Don’t start doubting me
now.”

“I don’t.  It’s just…”

“Helen, you don’t tell me every little thing
either.  Don’t pretend that you do.  Something’s been
bothering you ever since we went to the Sanderfield crime
scene.  You have very consciously avoided telling me what that
was.”

I clamped my mouth shut in
consternation.  That man in the crowd.  Yeah, he was
right about me and my little secrets.  Somehow they didn’t
seem so terrible when they were mine and not his.

“You’re doing it again.  I’m done
trying to pry answers out of you.  If I haven’t earned your
complete trust after everything we’ve been through, I’m starting to
wonder if there’s hope that I ever will.”

“Don’t say that,” I said.

He let go of me and turned away.

“There was a man in the crowd, the
spectators that showed up when Sanderfield was murdered,” I said
quickly.  “There was something about him… I can’t put my
finger on it.”

Johnny turned around again. 
“And?  Is this one of those things where you don’t want to
share because you haven’t figured it all out first?”

“Rick.”

“
What
?”  His sharp tone pierced
the guilt I felt for keeping another secret.

“I didn’t see his face.  I couldn’t see
it really.”

“Did you forget which husband you’re talking
to, Helen?”

I looked up into eyes shooting angry
sparks.  “He reminded me of Rick.  The hair, the way he
moved… but it couldn’t have been him, Johnny.  He’s
dead.  I
know
he’s dead.”

More confusion.  “Then you didn’t just
have one of those Freudian slip things and call me Rick?”

I sighed in exasperation.  “I was
trying to explain what’s been bothering me about the person I saw
at the crime scene.  He reminded me of my
ex
-husband.”

“Okay,” he drawled. 

Hands perched on my hips.  “Are you
deaf?  I tell you that I think I saw my dead ex-husband at a
crime scene yesterday morning, and you say
okay
? 
What’s wrong with you?”

“Helen, you said it yourself.  He’s
dead.  A man doesn’t survive a gunshot wound to the head like
that.  You didn’t see his face.”

“Let me rephrase.  I
couldn’t
see his face, Johnny.  The reason I couldn’t get a clear look
had nothing to do with the angle or distance.  His face was
obscured by bandages.”

His eyes darkened.  “Are you sure he’s
really…?”

“Yes,” I said.  “What did you just
say?  A man doesn’t survive something like that.”

“Exactly how close of a family resemblance
was there between Hamilton and Danny Datello?”

“Vague at best.  Were you going to
suggest that the FBI falsified their autopsy on Danny and helped
him escape justice?”

Johnny scratched his head and sighed. 
“No, no.  Of course not.  What about Hamilton’s other
family?”

I frowned.  “Are we talking about
parents, siblings?”

“Other cousins, maybe some other branch
farther removed from Datello or Marcos.”

“I don’t know.  I mean, he was an only
child.  As for cousins, I never met any other than Danny.”

“
Must
we call him Danny now?”

“Sorry,” I said.  “It’s just, I don’t
know.  Paranoia maybe.  Guilty conscience. 
Pregnancy brain.  I probably didn’t see what I thought I
saw.”

“Just the same,” Johnny said, “I’d like to
have a look at the photos of the crowd that were taken at the crime
scene.”

He pulled out his cell phone and
dialed.  I tuned out the conversation with Crevan, assuming
that Johnny was running with my haunting sense of déjà vu instead
of using his head and moving on from Sanderfield’s murder. 
We’d never catch the man who killed him.  For all we knew, he
could be in Timbuktu by now.

I thought about my father again, wondered
where he was, why he was ignoring our calls.  I drifted away
from Johnny and into the office.  The computer beckoned. 
I pulled up the account information for my offshore bank. 
Another hundred thousand dollars had been withdrawn shortly after
my last conversation with Dad.

“What’re you doing, Daddy?  Please
don’t do anything stupid.  Please don’t risk yourself for me
again.”

I think part of me knew that was wishful
thinking.

Chapter 5

It was morning before David finally returned
Johnny’s phone call.

“Did something happen, and why am I on
speaker phone?”

Johnny laughed.  “I’m going through
photos from the crime scene, David.  You’re on speaker phone
because I haven’t got three hands.  Got a question for
you.  Since you left, we’ve been going over all the
information from the investigation into Sanderfield, Sherman,
Gillette, all these people we’ve potentially linked to this human
trafficking ring, and I discovered something I’m concerned we
might’ve overlooked.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  You know we were looking at
Wendell Eriksson as a possible partner in this mess considering
what Gillette told Doc while she was being held prisoner on
The
Celeste
and –”

“Wendell Eriksson is a dead end,
Johnny.  I’m not sure how anything related to him could
possibly advance this investigation now.  And why in God’s
name would you keep coming back to him?  Does Helen know what
you’re doing?”

“I’m still convinced that he wasn’t
involved, David.  Let’s not forget that I actually met the
man.”

“No,” David’s displeasure rippled off the
phone connection.  “I haven’t forgotten that, Johnny, nor the
fact that Wendell’s last visitor impersonated an FBI agent.”

“Well, it turns out that this faux agent and
I weren’t the only folks who visited Wendell.  I remembered a
conversation that you and I had last December when you found out
that I too had gone to see him.  Our investigation revealed
that after my visit to Wendell, there were two other FBI agents
that talked to Wendell.  Since we already know that Peterson
wasn’t really an agent, I got to wondering if the other guy
was.”

“Who was the other visitor?” David’s chair
creaked.

“Someone who signed in as Special Agent
Noah.  I’m pretty sure I glossed over that little tidbit of
information while you were out here working the case with us
because I knew someone with the bureau discovered that I went to
see Wendell.”

“Nobody bothered talking to him,
Johnny.  We got a tip from one of the guards at the prison
after the fact.  Well, Seleeby got the tip, I should
say.  He didn’t share the information with anyone, and it was
quite some time before we worked through all the volumes of
documentation he was trying to compile against Helen to prove she
killed a man we now know committed suicide.”

“Can I ask who gave the tip?”

“Prison guard from Attica, a guy by the name
of Mike Lucero.  We did talk to him, and he was pretty… well,
I’m not sure how to put this delicately.  Helen’s not
listening to this conversation, is she?”

Johnny’s eyes met mine.  “She’s
sleeping in this morning, David.  Hard as it is to believe,
our chronic insomniac can’t seem to get enough sleep these
days.”

David chuckled.  “Well, I’m glad she’s
got you taking care of her.  This past year has been hell for
her.  I worry.”

“And I appreciate the concern.  So what
about Lucero?”

“Ah yes.  Lucero had an axe to grind
against the inmates.  At least that was my opinion when I
spoke to him.”

“
You
did the interview?”

“I did,” David said.  “But aside from
his general detest for the inmates in Attica, he seemed to bear an
unusual amount of animus toward Wendell in particular. 
Probably because Wendell was once a decorated police
detective.”

I listened to David’s fingers clacking over
the computer keyboard on his desk.  “As for a Special Agent
Noah, I have no idea who he is.  No surprise there.  I
don’t personally know every agent in the FBI, nor do I…” his voice
faded.

“Nor do you what?”

“Well now, this is interesting.  I’m in
a database of all our active agents, Johnny.  I see no one
with the name Noah.  Do you have the date of his visit to
Wendell?”

Johnny shuffled through the papers strewn
over the face of our office space.  “Uh, well, that would be
after my visit.  About a month.”

“Hmm,” David hummed. 

“It’s significant then, isn’t it?  Now
we’ve got two FBI impersonators visiting Wendell Eriksson in the
past several months prior to his death.”

“What about before you arrived,
Johnny?  Over the years, how many times was he seen while he
was in Attica?”

“Once a year by his old desk sergeant.”

David snorted.  “That man never
believed Wendell’s conviction was just,” he said.  “Of course,
if he’d had a better attorney than a public defender, the jury
might’ve agreed with him.”

I cringed.

“But we were convinced that there was far
more going on with Wendell Eriksson than the evidence ever
demonstrated.  Did he kill those armored guards and rob their
truck?  We think he was there, but the evidence against him
was circumstantial.”

“Still,” Johnny held up one hand to me,
forestalling any argument I might be tempted to make, “he was an
accessory, David, and if Marie Eriksson killed the guards, Wendell
was her accomplice.”

“And why would a police detective as
decorated as Eriksson was go along with something like that unless
he was part of it?”

Johnny stared at me hard.  I was biting
my lips almost hard enough to draw blood.  “Well, I’ve been
thinking about that too, David.  Try as I might, I can only
conceive of one reason Wendell would’ve gone along with something
like that, why he wouldn’t have touched his inheritance from his
parents to hire a competent defense team.  You know it as well
as I do.”

“Helen,” David said.

“Yeah.  He’d have done anything to
protect her.  We know, based on what Kathleen Conall told us
about the night that Helen was abducted that either Marie or Suzy
Henderson were involved.  What if Marie Eriksson threatened
Helen and coerced Wendell’s complicity in the crime?”

“Christ, I hadn’t considered that.  It
is truly unfortunate that Wendell died before we had the
opportunity to ask him these questions.”

“We need to subpoena Attica Correctional
Facility,” Johnny said.  “I want their video of visitors the
day this Noah showed up to see Wendell.  I need to know who he
really was, David.  I think in light of everything that’s
happened, these mysterious FBI impersonators could hold information
that we need.”

“I agree.  My concern is that after all
the time that has passed, they won’t still have those videos
anymore, Johnny.  But you’re welcome to try.”

“I’ve already processed the request.  I
did it last night, so we’re just waiting to hear back from Attica,”
Johnny said.

“There’s something about that last visitor
that concerns me, Johnny,” David said.  “You’re certain Helen
is still asleep?”

“Positive.”

“Am I the only one who finds it concerning
that Wendell had a visitor and hours later, he was dead?”

“What are you implying?”  Johnny made a
slicing motion at me with one hand.

“I’m not implying anything.  I’m saying
it outright.  Too many people who might’ve known things about
this human trafficking ring are dying, either by suicide, strange
preexisting medical conditions, murder, or in the case of Helen’s
abductors, as a matter of her sense of self preservation. 
Someone is mopping up witnesses.  I’m not convinced that
Wendell knew what he knew about Helen’s abduction, but he knew a
lot about Marie Eriksson.”

“And you think Peterson somehow managed to
kill Wendell in a way that took hours for him to die?”

“I’m saying I’d love to find the man. 
You’ll tell me if you get the video of him?  We can have the
bureau analyze the tape, see if we can figure out who he really
is.”

Johnny frowned.  “Are you suggesting
that OSI doesn’t have the capability of analyzing their video,
David?”

“No, of course not.  A copy would
suffice.  Two agencies looking are better than one.”

The knot that had been growing in the pit of
my stomach tightened.  What if they realized I was Thomas
Peterson?  Our eyes met.  Johnny did that thing he does
with me, the creepy mind reading.  He shook his head
briskly. 

“Of course you’re right, David.  And if
Attica still has the film, we’ll share it.”

“Thank you,” David said.  “I wish I
could still be part of what’s going on out there, Johnny, but
things are… hectic with the Marcos case right now.  We’ve got
new information, rather startling information.”

“Oh?  Anything we should know
about?”

“Proof that Datello really wasn’t part of
Sully’s enterprise.  I’m starting to believe what Helen
surmised was true.  The thing with Mr. Ireland was truly
Datello’s panic that someone found out he planned to give evidence
against his uncle.  Hell, according to Franchetta, even that
hit is suspect now.”