by LS Sygnet
I shriveled into my navel. How was I supposed to know that reputation? Orion invaded my turf when he set a foolish attraction into motion.
"Well yeah," so obvious even a teenager could see it. "But it wasn't ever like that with Johnny, not that I can ever remember. I don't think Gwen was his type, really."
"What type was that?" I bit my tongue. Stupid question!
"Young," Vinnie said. "Way younger than Gwen."
Like Candy Blevins young. I struggled to resist the urge to rush to judgment. "Was Johnny around more over the past few months?" We already knew the answer to that question thanks to the Gladys Kravitz-like stereotypical nosy neighbor.
"That's what the strange thing was. He'd just sit out at the curb sometimes all night."
Stalker. It fit my theory. Orion has an airtight alibi, Helen. It was corroborated, remember?
"Did Gwen say she hired Johnny to work for her for any reason?"
Vinnie shook his head and slumped into a less animated human form. "She didn't hire him. Johnny wouldn't have taken her money even if she tried to hire him."
"Did she act strange in any other way?"
"Sometimes. I don't know what was going on, Dr. Eriksson. She wasn't as happy, maybe. And she seemed a little bit nervous, I guess. Sometimes I'd see her trying to hide that she was crying. I could tell. You can tell when somebody is crying."
And how. The creases of Vinnie's nose were cracked and bright red. Puffy eyes, moist with tears shed and those waiting for release.
"You never heard her talking to Johnny, to anyone about what was making her sad?" Charlie asked an excellent question.
"A couple of times when Johnny actually came in, I walked in on them. They stopped talking right away."
"Was Gwen dating anybody?"
He shook his head. "She was kinda private about that stuff. I suspected there might be somebody, but she never had him around when I was home."
The neighbors hadn't reported seeing a suitor either. It meant nothing. Gwen could've seen him on neutral ground or at his home. It prompted another question. "Vinnie, did Gwen ever spend the night away from home or go away for the weekend?"
"I wouldn't know about during the week. I boarded at Sisters of Mercy and was only home on weekends. At least I did until January. Gwen told me she wanted me to come live at home for my last semester of school."
"Did she tell you why?"
He frowned. "No, but come to think of it, she was acting a little jumpy then already. It seemed like it got better for awhile, but then in late March, Johnny started hanging around all the time."
"Thank you for answering my questions," I said. "We're so sorry for your loss, and I want you to know that we're doing everything possible to find the person who did this to your cousin."
He nodded.
"I'd like to talk to you some more, Mr. Hartley. We'll wait until you help Vinnie back to his room."
Charlie lifted his eyebrows when we were alone. "What else?"
"Gwen Foster was obviously married at some point. She also had a baby. Now come the tough questions. Feel free to let me take this part of the interview, Charlie. Hartley is going to have to be coerced into telling the truth. If I can't do it, this interview is going down like the Hindenburg."
Chapter 31
Harlan Hartley was the embodiment of askance when he stalked back into the kitchen. "I don't know what the hell this is all about, but I think I've said all I have to say."
Charlie started to rise. I gripped his arm and tugged him back down.
"Mr. Hartley, I am not leaving this house until someone gives me some straight answers."
"I already did that. I can't help it that they weren't the ones you wanted."
"But I haven't asked the important questions yet. For instance, what happened to Gwen's baby?"
The swarthy seemed to wither in front of us into a state of cachexia. For a moment, it looked as if he might miss the chair he left scooted out from the table. "Why in the name of all that's holy would you say such a thing?"
"The body doesn't lie, Mr. Hartley. Did you think for one second that Gwen died at the age of 34 and no one considered performing an autopsy?"
Given Charlie's hesitation to interview Vinnie alone, I was confident that none of the details of Gwen's violent death had been shared. It was probably cruel to inform Hartley in such a frank manner, but answers were no longer optional. If I had to reduce the man to a sack of weeping bones, so be it.
"You … cut her open?"
"I know she had a baby. I know that the child was born at or close to full term. We have irrefutable proof of this. She either had this child in a foreign country or was tended by a doctor who didn't follow the standards of practice in this country. Is that what happened, Mr. Hartley? Did an incompetent doctor like Riley Storm deliver Gwen's child?"
"Stop saying that!"
"I won't. What was she, fifteen years old? Maybe sixteen when she got pregnant? Did Frank send her away to give birth so no one would know and the Bennett family would be spared the shame of a bastard child? I know Frank was religious enough to send Gwen to Catholic school, Vinnie too. Gwen upheld the family –"
"Don't you call him that! He is not a bastard. It's no more his fault how he came into this world than it is any other child's!" Hartley's voice boomed through the kitchen, probably a lot farther truth be told. Apparently he wasn't concerned who heard him. Vinnie was too gorked out to understand he had a secret cousin out there in the world somewhere.
I didn't care about the Bennett family secrets.
"Was she raped?"
Harlan Hartley's hands shook. He gripped his face tightly, shoulders shaking. "How in the world can you know this? We never … there isn't a soul alive other than me now who knows these things."
"The body doesn't lie, Harlan. Tell me what happened to Gwen. What did Frank do to protect her?"
Silence was punctuated with the irregular keening of a man desperate to get his emotions back under control. Finally he spoke.
"After the deed was done, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot that could be done to protect our Gwennie."
"How old was she? Fifteen? Did the attack happen in early spring?"
His hands slowly dropped from wet cheeks. "How can you know this?"
"Because he's done it before, and has continued to do this time and again. What I find incredible is that this man attacked the Bennett family not once but twice."
This time, Harlan didn't hide his tears or try to suppress the brokenhearted sobs that wracked his body. "Brighton. Oh my God. Brighton too."
"Mr. Hartley, what did Gwen tell her father about the rape? Why didn't Frank report it to the police? Why was Gwen forced to bear the shame of what happened to her in silence without any hope of justice?"
"He knew where we lived! My God, he snatched her out from under our noses. And what good would it have done to call the police? She never even saw his face. What that child endured, we couldn't make her tell anyone about it again. It was hard enough when Frank and I found her and brought her home."
"Gone two days? Found wandering along the roadside without any clothing? He threatened her with the vilest of crimes and taunted her to attack him?"
Harlan's eyes widened in horror. "She never gave us the details. It was pretty obvious what he did to her, Detective Eriksson. Frank asked her who it was. She said he wore a mask, and then she didn't speak for a solid week. Didn't sleep. Didn't eat. She sat at the window in her bedroom staring out at the lane like the devil himself might appear if she looked away."
"You didn't take her to a doctor for medical care?"
"We wanted to," he rasped. "Every time Frank tried to get her to move, she started shrieking. She couldn't even stand to have her own papa touch her."
"How long before you realized that Gwen was carrying the child of her rapist?"
"It wasn't that baby's fault, doctor. He was innocent."
"How. Long."
"Five months. Gwen was so quiet afte
r it happened. She started moving around after the first week, like a little ghost. That son of a bitch killed her spirit. She was such a frail little thing, only five two and not more'n a hundred pounds soakin' wet. It wasn't long before we noticed some changes. Gwennie would get this real empty look when Frank tried to talk to her about it. So he went to a friend and confided in him, asked for advice. That's when the doctor started comin' out to see her here.
"Gwennie was all shook up when she realized what was happening to her body. We got some help for her, sent her to a real nice place our friend knew about, and they took care of her until the little guy was born."
Homes for unwed mothers had gone out of fashion to my knowledge long before Gwen would've given birth. Then again, who knows what the Catholics do in such situations. Abortion probably hadn't been offered. "Go on," I coaxed.
"When she came home the next year –"
"She was gone a year?"
"Long enough to go to school a full term at the home she went to. We just told the folks at Sisters of Mercy that Gwennie was in one of those student exchange programs." He shrugged. "She did learn to speak Spanish while she was gone, so nobody thought a thing about it."
"What country was she in?"
His jaw set stubbornly. "I don't see how any of this helps figure out who murdered our girl."
"It matters because Gwen died the same way Brighton did."
A good fifteen minutes passed before Hartley was able to compose himself enough to continue. I soldiered on. "So you see, this is related. For whatever reason, Gwen remained his target, unless you can think of someone else who she would've confided the truth to, who hated her enough to make it appear that the same man who killed Brighton killed Gwen."
"That ain't possible!"
"Because she wouldn't have told anyone? Not even the man she married?"
"She never had a husband. We only had her change her name when she got so bad away from home that she couldn't leave her apartment anymore. She was terrified to come back here as Gwen Bennett. That was when Frank bought the house for her in Nightingale and set her up. Danny hired her. I wasn't lying when I said Gwen got up every morning, went to work and came home at night. She could barely stand to do more."
"Why would you allow Vinnie to live with someone so emotionally crippled? Is this why he boarded at the Sisters of Mercy?"
"She loves that boy!" Hartley's protest strangled in his throat. "Loved him."
I sucked in a deep breath. "Does Vinnie know that Gwen was his mother?"
"You can't … please don't tell that boy some wild story that you can't possibly prove."
"A simple DNA test, Mr. Hartley, that's all it will take to prove it."
"But it can't make a difference anymore." Desperation etched the deep lines in his face. "It would kill him to know the truth. He'd never understand why we hid it from him all these years."
"I'll keep your secret – provisionally, Mr. Hartley."
"What do you want from me?"
"If I have more questions, you're going to be completely honest with me. Otherwise, I'll march into Vinnie's room, wake him up and tell him everything. Do we have an agreement?"
My sincere hope was that the mere threat would push Hartley to reveal anything he thought to hold back, like why Gwen's murderer could've have been the same man who raped her and left her pregnant and a few years later, slaughtered Brighton.
"If I have to, to protect Vinnie."
I would later discover how vain my hope truly was.
Chapter 32
The tension in Charlie's car was a palpable living thing. I could hear it breathing, feel it's pulse throbbing against my flesh. My protégé was one unhappy camper. He'd probably never seen anyone pound a potential witness so hard before. From what I'd heard, Central Division didn't have a whole lot of solved cases let alone interrogations.
"Charlie –"
"Don't."
"I know that was difficult to watch, but Hartley had no intention of telling me the truth tonight. He needed to know how serious this is. He needed a little push to invest in helping us find this guy."
"I get that part, Helen. I do. And as hard as it was to watch you go after that poor guy, I know it had to be done."
"Then what's the problem? Why do I feel this silent rage battering me?"
"You looked like you were enjoying it."
The theory rolled around in my brain hard enough to nearly miss his next accusation.
"And you'll be lucky if he doesn't call the chief to file a complaint that you threatened him."
"I did no such thing."
"Really? You didn't threaten to destroy the life of the only family that poor guy has left?"
It was a thing of beauty. Charlie's righteous indignation pointed out a subtle clue that I hadn't seen. If Gwen was Vinnie Bennett's mother, and our perp was the father, Harlan Hartley wasn't related to the young man at all. Scores of new questions popped into my head.
What would make a friend so deeply invested in a family that wasn't his own lie to the police? For that matter, hadn't Hartley claimed to meet the family only after his fictitious sister died? He sure knew an awful lot about Gwen's reaction to an assault. Did Hartley stand to gain something by keeping the family secret? Was Hartley as close to Datello as Frank had been?
I had no doubt that there was deep familiarity between the two men. He called him Danny. And that attempt to keep Datello's name out of Gwen's exile was the lamest thing I'd ever heard. Datello paid to have Gwen sent off to some sanctuary for unwed mothers to protect her.
It opened the door to even more questions. What had forged such friendship and loyalty between amoral scum like Datello and Frank Bennett, who by all accounts had a very rocky start to his relationship with Datello?
"We need to go back, Charlie."
His cell phone rang.
"Haverston." A long pause ensued. "That sounds reasonable. Did he put up much of a fight?"
I felt the sharp stab of a glare in the darkness.
"Fine. Good. I don't think she'd disapprove. Any word on the Blevins girl yet?"
Breath burned in my lungs. Breathe, Helen. He'll tell me what I won't disapprove of. Be patient.
"All right. I'll let her know." He thrust the phone back into his pocket.
"What happened?"
"Thieg said that there's a convention in the homicide squad room tonight. Lowe, Myre, Rogers, Daltry, they were all up there when he and Adams came on shift. Rather than risk any sort of confrontation between Orion and his former peers, Adams decided to stay at central and keep an eye on him personally."
The interest of Jerry Lowe was understandable. He'd been cut out of the communication loop for the most part. I didn't doubt why Myre, Rogers and Daltry were sniffing around. Lowe wanted to know what we were learning. What I didn't understand was why he didn't simply ask for an update.
"And Candy Blevins?"
"Taylor found Carrie at work and asked the question we neglected in our haste to bully a grieving family."
"Where is she?"
"Carrie didn't know, but told her boss she needed to leave work due to a family emergency. She's out with Thieg scouring the usual dives, talking to the regulars in Candy's haunts with the hope that someone will be more likely to talk to the twin sister than they have been the cops."
"Charlie, when you talked to Thieg, did he mention if Rodney Martin was at central too?"
"As far as I know, he's still MIA."
"Maybe that's why so many people are at central tonight. Nobody has talked to him for two days. It could officially be a missing person's case. Do you know Captain Martin well?"
"Not really. He doesn't rub elbows with the lowest rank in the department if you know what I mean. Why? Is that important?"
"Rodney was in one of the undergraduate classes that I helped teach when I was finishing my doctorate," I said. "He was the one who brought me to the attention of George Hardy and Don Weber."
"Are you you implying that h
is disappearance is related to your arrival in town?"
"I'm not sure." My gaze pointed behind us. No headlights. "Charlie, have you noticed anyone following us tonight?"
"No. Has someone been following you?"
More than one. Where were Seleeby and David? I gnawed the inside of my cheek. If I called David, it would reopen a door I wanted shut forever. "It's probably nothing." The sudden disappearance of Kelly and Varden disturbed me. Was I no longer considered an interest to whoever hired them to detain me, or was it a matter of mission accomplished after what happened to me yesterday?
"It probably isn't?" The previous level of ire evaporated. Charlie glanced over at me. "Who was following you?"
"Considering that Orion identified the men, I'm not sure if he told the truth or not. I believe that whoever it was accosted me in Washington before I arrived in Darkwater Bay, and are the same men who stole my laptop computer from my hotel room."
"Who did Johnny say they were?"
"Local private detectives, a Kelly and Varden. You suspected the same thing."
"Yeah," jaw clenched, muscles bunched and tense. "I didn't realize this was an ongoing issue. They're not exactly nice people, Helen. Mostly they shake people down for the highest bidder in any given dispute."
"What kind of disputes?"
"Typically? Union bullshit."
"Unions." Hadn't someone mentioned union activity? Maybe Briscoe and Conall the night they gave me the history lesson. Recent events felt jumbled, on an uncertain timeline in my mind. The big stuff had come back. Rick's funeral. My arrival in Darkwater Bay. The murder scene. And while I recalled generalities of other things, the specifics tickled my consciousness. They teased awareness and frustrated me with their elusive nature.
"Yeah," Charlie continued. "We've got more than our fair share of them in Darkwater Bay. There's the fishing union, the logging union, the service worker's union, a trucking union, school teachers … and then ours."
"Ours?"
"Law enforcement. But you know, it's pretty benign. Mostly they provide legal counsel if one of us gets into trouble. There's the retirement fund and whatnot, but they're not like the others about stuff like no mandatory overtime, or making sure we get triple or quadruple pay if we're required to work over eight in a day or forty in a week."