by LS Sygnet
"He could always confess, turn state's against Sully and cut a sweetheart deal. Do you need time to consider or do you have another idea?"
"Orion's visit to Attica disturbs me," he said with a sigh of resignation. "You know it'll be used against someone down the road."
"Likely. Would you appreciate that fact coming to light sooner? I can make it happen."
"What I'd like is for this woman to fail. Even once would suffice."
"Sir, she could suffer complications from that gunshot wound easily enough."
"That won't happen, not with Orion playing personal bodyguard. Dammit. I thought those two would end up hating each other."
"She'll probably run if she finds out what Orion did, going to Attica to see Wendell Eriksson."
"That would be optimal, but unfeasible, at least for the next few months."
"She could get out of that contract with Downey Division, sir, and you know it."
"Curse Jackson for his faulty aim."
"I had the same thought," he muttered.
"We'll have to sit tight and see what happens. Maybe Franchetta stays off the grid. Maybe Eriksson leaves Darkwater Bay in complete ignorance and we deal with her as originally planned. Only time will tell, my friend. In the meantime, we wait. We watch. We keep our eyes and ears open, but most important; we carry on business as usual."
"And what about Datello? Do we let her go after him?"
"As you know, it neither hurts nor helps us either way on that point. Let's hold off for the time being, see how things shake out back east before we commit to action in Darkwater Bay. But in the meantime, perhaps you ought to consider talking to the real Wendell Eriksson. Who knows? Maybe he'll tell you why Johnny Orion went to visit him."
They both knew it wasn't likely. Eriksson would never cooperate with the feds. Still, when the boss gave an order, his men followed it.
Chapter 39
Johnny leaned against the wall and crossed arms and ankles.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
"Don't be glib. You know exactly what I'm talking about!" Sweet Jesus, why was he so calm? My heart leapt into the back of my throat. I was certain that the fist shaped organ must be visibly hammering away in my neck. "Where were you last week, Johnny?"
"I'm not having this conversation with you while you're pissed off and irrational, Doc." He pushed away from the wall and disappeared into my bedroom.
Rage thrummed through me, providing a much needed infusion of adrenalin that propelled me out of the chair without an ounce of difficulty. I stormed after him. "I am not irrational and pissed off. I deserve a goddamned answer, Johnny! Who sent the request to the FBI for my personnel file, specifically the process by which I was vetted for employment?"
Johnny was in the formerly empty small walk-in closet. His fingers sifted through suits too numerous to count.
"Get your stuff and get out of my house! Who told you that you could move in here anyway?"
"I believe you consented, Helen, when I held you in the hospital and promised that I wasn't going to leave you. Have you forgotten already?"
"And if I insist?"
He shrugged. "You still need help."
"I'd rather hire it!"
"Why? Because I love you enough to get answers that were never going to come from you?"
My eyes burned with the effort it took to hold back the tears. "Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"
"Because this is eating you alive, Helen. I told you long ago. I know you."
The anger so quick to burn transformed to panic just as quickly. I started to hyperventilate.
"Doc…"
"Don't call me that!"
He stepped close. "I love you."
"And I have the right to remain silent, right? Anything I say can and will be used against me –"
"Stop it. I want you to talk to me because I love you, not because I want to arrest you."
"You don't mean that. This is your job. You're one of the good guys."
"Thanks, I think," he muttered. "Somehow I get the feeling you didn't mean that in a complimentary way."
I dashed away the few tears that escaped the floodgate with my right hand. "What did you do, Johnny?"
"You had a problem. I took care of it."
"Jesus," I rasped. "Are you really that stupid? Do you believe I'm that stupid?"
"I don't know what to think, Helen. You won't trust me enough to tell me the truth."
"You already know it!" I screamed at him. The tears were coming faster than I could wipe them away with one hand. Why had he done such a stupid thing? No one saw what I did to Rick. David was right about that – Eddie Franchetta would've been such an impeachable witness, no prosecutor would've acted on his testimony alone.
Johnny cupped my chin and lifted it. "No, Helen. I don't know what you did. I know what I think happened. I certainly know what Rick did to you. And I have to tell you, I wasn't particularly impressed with the vetting process the bureau used when they hired you."
My chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vice…until Johnny's words sunk in a little bit. I certainly know what Rick did to you.
But how much did he know?
"What do you mean you know what he did to me, you don't approve of the vetting process? What makes you qualified to judge –"
"It took me all of six hours to find out that Rick Hamilton's birth mother was Danny Datello's aunt on the paternal side of the family. The bureau didn't even discover that he was adopted by the people who I'm sure you believed were his parents too."
My mind started racing. "How did you find out?"
Johnny shrugged. "When your ex was fourteen years old, his adoptive parents applied for a new social security number for him in California. The old one was issued shortly after he was born. I found it. Did he tell you he actually lived in Darkwater Bay when he was born?"
I could work with this. Maybe. How much did Johnny know about Rick's murder? I turned around and left the closet. He'd follow. Johnny wasn't going to walk away from me, of that much I was beyond convinced. All that remained to be seen was how much of a lie he was willing to believe.
His hand fell on my right shoulder. "Can we sit down and have a rational conversation now?"
Rational. It hardly described my state of mind. Johnny had committed a stupid, rash act, one likely prompted by my relentless friend Mark Seleeby. A secret is only assured to be a secret if only one person knows the truth. Dangerous territory stretched out before me. Another lie? A better lie…and then run like hell. It could be the answer.
I struggled onto the sofa in the living room. Running at all would be difficult in my current state of handicap.
"Helen," Johnny squatted in front of me, "please talk to me. I'm not judging you. Hell, I broke the law in a major way, just so you could have a little piece of mind. What did Rick Hamilton do to you the night he died?"
Think, dammit! Find out what he knows about the murder.
First order of business was to stop fighting the tears. My throat ached so much from the effort that it actually felt cathartic to just let go. The desired effect was achieved. Johnny sat beside me and gently pulled me against his side.
"Oh, honey. Don't you know how much it kills me to see this tearing you up this way? You've got to get it off your chest."
"I – I met with him that night," I sobbed, all the while reminding myself that there were no witnesses to the crime. I could say what I wanted and it couldn't be proved or disproved. The only facts married to my words were those contained in the report of Rick's death. I closed my eyes and relived the moment.
Rick, in that tiny clearing, taunting me with the truth after I refused to help protect him from Marcos. Somebody embezzled the tycoon's money, and Rick knew Sully suspected him. After all, the legal fees were starting to mount. Some guy from Marcos' crew was following him. He was certain of it.
I on the other hand, smelled bullshit when it was
under my nose. If Sully was having Rick followed, the bureau would've known about it. He'd have been scooped up in a heartbeat and offered another deal. That hadn't happened.
Light kisses rained down on my head. "Tell me what happened, Helen."
"He wanted me to help him by destroying the evidence the FBI had against him."
"I see. You refused of course."
"Yes. I – there was no way I was lifting a finger to help him, Johnny."
"Did you argue? Did he threaten you?"
Ah, Johnny, thank you. "Yes…" slowly, and then, "he told me that he'd make sure I went down with him if I wouldn't help. He said he'd tell the FBI that I knew who he was all along." A little bit of truth leeched into my story.
"I see," Johnny said.
"He reminded me that I met Sully's nephew at our wedding. We spoke for less than a minute. He shook my hand, kissed my cheek and welcomed me to the family," I admitted another tidbit of fact. The memory of our wedding day flashed unbidden before my eyes.
"We were in the receiving line, and I was overwhelmed with the number of people there. They were all Rick's friends, his family. I had no one." Emotion choked me for a moment, and my tears became a genuine reflection of pain instead of anger and fear. "Dad was all I had left, and it wasn't…it wasn't possible to see him again. Not if I wanted a life, a future with the FBI."
"Did you want that life, Helen?"
"Yes. Very much."
"When you got married, had the FBI already vetted you for service?"
I nodded. That's right, Johnny. Follow the breadcrumbs. Understand what those sons of bitches really did to me. "Technically, I was vetted before Rick and I were married. David recruited me before I finished my PhD."
"You were in demand by a lot of different organizations."
Orion really had done his homework. Had he learned all of this in the few short days he was gone? "How did you know that?"
He shrugged. "I did a little digging after you came to Darkwater Bay. I'm not sure if you're aware of the fan club you've got out there, sweetheart. You've helped so many people."
"For my master's thesis, I wrote a monograph that landed on David's desk. It helped them nail down an elusive pattern of a killer in California. I got access to the police files when they approached UCLA for a forensic psychology consultation. He contacted me, and kept in touch after I started my PhD studies."
"Had you met Rick when the FBI started courting you?"
"No," I whispered.
"Let me guess."
"You don't have to. He never loved me, Johnny. I was young and studious and naïve and more than a little brokenhearted after losing my father. That monograph got a lot of attention on the west coast."
"Datello targeted you, didn't he?"
"And then smugly walked up to me in the receiving line at my wedding and welcomed me to the family." I pulled away from the comfort Johnny offered and wept tears of shame and outrage.
"When Rick reminded me that I met Datello, told me that I was part of a grand plan I…I snapped."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tense. Johnny pressed one clenched fist to his lips. I soldiered on, committed to a lie from which there was no turning back. Would he believe me?
"I screamed at him, told him I hated him for what he did to me. How dare he act like the aggrieved husband when I didn't support him but filed for divorce? He had no right to expect my support, not then, and certainly not now after admitting that he never loved me. He fought back. He told me that just because he didn't love me when we got married didn't mean it hadn't developed later."
Johnny's hand fell away from his lips. His eyebrows rose. Didn't see this coming, did you Mr.-Know-It-All? His attention was rapt.
"What happened next?"
"I told him I'd go to David and tell him everything Rick had confessed to me, that the bureau would believe me because of my service record, and the fact that I was going to them the second I knew what not only he had done to me, but wanted me to do with their evidence.
"That was when he pulled out the gun. He told me that he might as well kill himself if I wouldn't help him, if he meant so little to me that I was willing to let Marcos have him killed because of the missing money."
"Helen…did you fight for the gun?"
I shook my head. "I…I did it, Johnny. I killed him."
Johnny's shoulders sagged. "Tell me."
"I told him that I wished he would kill himself. I said, do everyone a favor and pull the trigger. Stick that gun in your mouth and do it!"
"Baby…"
"He said, what if it doesn't do the job? Where would your father put the gun if he was gonna kill me, Helen? And God help me, I was so angry that I…I…"
"You killed him?"
"I told him to put it behind his ear and pull the trigger." My finger touched lightly behind my ear to the area directly above the mastoid process where a bullet would rip through the ear canal at an angle and directly into the brain. "I didn't think he'd do it, Johnny. I figured a man so selfish that he'd marry a woman he didn't love because his criminal relatives told him to do it would never…"
The relief that radiated from Johnny overwhelmed me with guilt. One truth I'd spoken during my creative edit of events was more an observation that Johnny Orion was one of the good guys. If only started haunting me. If only I'd met someone like Johnny before Rick sunk his claws into me. If only my little story had more than a fleck of truth here and there. If only…
"Helen, you didn't kill him." His arms wound around me gently. "Baby, it was suicide. Did the FBI even check for gunshot residue on his hands?"
"I panicked."
"The gun?"
I nodded. "Why would they believe the daughter of Wendell Eriksson? Things had become so strained after Rick's arrest anyway. People couldn't believe I had no idea what he was doing. And…Johnny…I don't think they know he was Datello's cousin, even now. If they ever find out –"
"Shh," he soothed. "Even if it comes out now, it won't incriminate you. The FBI is happy. They've got Sully Marcos. His hands are far from clean, Helen. It might not be justice in the perfect sense, but it's still the right thing. With that much, I can agree and sympathize with Wendell."
I let the story gel in my brain a little longer, endured the sparks of shame his soothing hands elicited with every soft stroke. I'd dug myself into a hole but good, at least for the time being, until my shoulder healed. Then I could quietly disappear. Change my name. Plastic surgery. Sex change if needed. Anything to make sure this never happened again. In order for it to happen, Johnny needed to be far away from me. I wasn't sure how much more my conscience could take.
"Helen?"
"I'm sorry, Johnny."
"There's something I need to tell you. Since I'm up to my eyeballs in this thing too."
I pulled away a second time. "What? What else?"
"I went to see your father."
Outrage warred with the ache of long separation, the need to hear anything about him, how he was faring in prison. Did he hate me for abandoning him? Was he well? Had he been mistreated? Was he old and broken?
"Shh…"
Had I asked my questions?
Johnny thumbed new tears from my cheeks. "He's fine Helen. I'm sure he's aged some, but he's fine. They keep him segregated –"
"Why did you do that? Johnny, are you insane? They keep records of visitors in prison! They'll know you saw him. They'll figure out what you did!"
"He asked me to give you a message."
"What? What did he tell you? No. Don't tell me. I can't hear this. I can't know this. You have to leave. I – I can't see you again, Johnny. It's not safe."
"Helen," he gripped my hand. "All he said was that he loves you and he's not sorry you walked away."
My body started shaking. The words were too much, the thought of my father rotting away in prison when I had the means all along to prevent it from happening…and after so many years, he didn't blame me for abandoning him. That was the fa
ther I loved, idolized, should've moved heaven and earth to protect.
And now, because of Johnny's stupidity, I'd probably never have the opportunity to right that wrong. Any tender emotion I'd felt for him started to whither and die. He reached for me again. This time, I slapped the hand away and shot off the sofa. Adrenalin returned. My voice trembled along with the finger that pointed toward the door.
"Get out of my house."
"What? Why?"
Good question. My mind raced for an answer that he'd believe without question.
"I will not risk going through hell because you dragged that monster into my life again. I will not risk prison because of an association with a cop who is just as dirty as Wendell was. I knew there had to be something wrong with you. That's all I attract, scum!"
"But you…you asked about him, Helen."
"Because I hoped he was dead! I hope he suffered and was broken and died alone the way he deserved!" Saying the words just about ripped my heart in two. Some lies should never be told.
Johnny's jaw dropped. "But –"
"Get out. You're just like he is. I despise you Johnny Orion. If you want to arrest me, go ahead. I didn't kill Rick. I might've known the truth about what happened to him, and panicked enough to do something stupid like dispose of the gun he used to kill himself, but I never framed somebody else for murder."
"Franchetta, I'm sure courtesy of Danny Datello, gave a false statement to your old pal Mark Seleeby from the FBI, claiming to see you murder Rick. Did you know that Seleeby told Chris Darnell that Franchetta claims he saw you murder Rick?" Orion snapped out of his state of shock and snarled at me. "What was I supposed to do? Sit back and wait for somebody to frame you? Because that's exactly what happened, Helen."
"David was right. Franchetta would've never made a credible witness a prosecutor would've put on the stand to testify against me or anybody else. Not when there wasn't a shred of hard evidence against me."
"You're being as rash right now as you've accused me of being. Helen, don't do this."
"It's already done." I pointed to the door. "Leave now, Johnny, or so help me God, I'll call David this second and tell him what you did. My mistakes were stupid, but they weren't criminal. Don't expect me to believe that explosion at Sully Marcos' waste processing plant was an accident."