by LS Sygnet
Saul hit a button and the lock on the door released. “I’m going to have to look at that bible, father. Nothing personal. It’s just policy.”
“Of course,” Wendell smiled. He passed the book to the jail officer. “She’s bound to be devastated by this news, Officer Becker. Losing a parent is a terrible thing.”
Saul thumbed through the bible and handed it back. “Come with me.”
Wendell followed him through the maze of corridors until they reached one that was very quiet.
“She’s the only woman on the block at the moment,” Saul said. He disengaged the electronic lock. “When you’re through, just push the call button on this side. I’ll wait out here.”
Wendell walked down the hallway, glancing into each cell until he reached the one with a woman who looked a great deal younger than her actual age sitting on the cot.
“Who are you?” she snarled.
“Of course you don’t recognize me. But my God, you look just like your mother. Well, at least you look like she did before she got pregnant with you. She was once a very attractive woman, you know.”
Melissa Sherman’s eyes widened. “You knew my mother? But… she wasn’t Catholic.”
“Neither was I at the time,” Wendell said. “I knew your father too.”
“My father died before I was born.”
He clenched his teeth. Was that what Lyle told her? He wondered briefly if his theory was way off base. “Well, regardless, I knew him. I knew Lyle too.”
“My grandfather? Have you seen him here? How is he? Why hasn’t he come to see me?”
“Melissa, I’m afraid I have some very upsetting news to tell you. Your grandfather passed away last night.”
“No!” she cried. “What happened to him?”
“The police haven’t made any announcements yet, but they suspect foul play was involved. They believe his death might be related to his step-son’s as well.”
She grayed to the color of pewter. “Oh God. Oh my God!”
“Melissa, no one knows your relationship to Mr. Henderson, do they?”
She shook her head. Her fist mashed her lips against her teeth. “Only one man. Only one left. He’ll get to me too.”
Wendell’s eyes sharpened in focus. “It’s important that you tell me the identity of this man, Melissa.”
“Why? You can’t protect me.”
“It’s true, everything you tell me is protected by the seal of the confessional, but I’m not bound by any such oath if I know that a crime is about to take place. If your life is in danger, I can help protect you.”
She whispered the name.
Wendell jammed one finger into his ear and twisted it. “Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
Tears spiked her eyelashes. “You heard me. You just don’t believe me, do you Father? Like everyone else, you could never imagine that such an upstanding man could be capable of murder. I promise you. If Grandfather is dead, he’s the one who did it.”
“I’m going to give you a bit of very wise advice, Melissa. It would be in your best interests to contact your attorney immediately. If he’s worth the price you’re paying for his services, you can use what you just told me to bargain for a very good deal with the prosecutor.”
“Why would the prosecutor believe me either? Everybody in this wretched city, hell, half the state, thinks the sun rises and sets on this guy. You have no idea how powerful he is, Father. If he’s killed my grandfather, it’s the worst news I could’ve possibly heard.” She nodded, tucked her knees close to her chest and started rocking. “It’s only a matter of time. He’ll find a way to get to me too. He’ll kill anyone who knows what we’ve been doing.”
“And what is that?” Wendell asked.
“Selling women,” Melissa whispered. “Selling women for longer than you could possibly imagine, Father. And this man? He’s the one who started the whole thing.”
“Do you know why someone would do such a terrible thing?”
She nodded. “Sex. Power. Money. And he doesn’t value women at all. He says that even God believes that slavery is right.”
“Do you feel the same way?”
“All I wanted was a family,” she began weeping. “That was all I ever wanted. But they made me marry that old pervert, and I loved Andy. We wanted a child of our own.”
The name clicked in Wendell’s mind. Andy Gillette. Helen told him the story. Gillette’s words had been less than tender the night he abducted Helen. Rather than risk his own capture, he’d left the woman who claimed to love him behind. Helen said Gillette’s reaction to her knowledge of what was happening had been, “Fuck ‘em. They’re on their own.”
Was this woman a victim too? Or had Lyle simply groomed her to play a role very well?
“Melissa, did your mother ever tell you why she couldn’t raise you?” he asked gently.
She nodded. “She said I reminded her too much of my father, that her job in the city was so hard, she couldn’t give me the kind of life I deserved, a home with a loving mother and father, that I was better off with my grandparents.” Her voice dipped to a raspy whisper. “I barely knew her at all. Do I really look like her?”
“You do,” Wendell said. “And Melissa, I am so very sorry for your losses. All of them.”
Chapter 37
Johnny made his way to the barricade where David Levine and another agent he recognized from the day Datello allegedly died waited.
“David.”
“What the hell is going on here? I’ve got a warrant.”
Johnny ignored the irate agent and remained focused on David. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
“Anything you have to say can be said in front of Agent Soule.”
“Joel Soule?” his interest piqued.
“That’s right,” Soule said. “You’re Helen Eriksson’s husband, aren’t you? You were at the hospital the day Danny Datello died.”
Johnny cast a frosty smile at the man. “That was me. And she’s Helen Orion now, if you don’t mind. I’m curious, agents. Why is this case so interesting to the men trying to build the best possible case against Sullivan Marcos? Did someone happen to make you believe that Uncle Sully is part of some vast, criminal enterprise on the west coast?”
“Joel is here on another matter, Johnny. You know damn well why I’ve been involved in this. A state senator was murdered, one who appeared to be headed for the governor’s office. I told you hours ago that I thought we should question Mr. Henderson. He could very well have important information about Sanderfield’s enemies.”
“Well, you’re going to have to wait your turn. Mr. Henderson is already in our custody. We can waste time battling it out in court, but I think my case trumps yours, and possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“Maybe we should have this conversation in private,” David’s mouth set with grim determination.
Johnny stepped around the barricade. “My car is right over there, David. I’d be happy to go out to headquarters and discuss all of this to your heart’s content.”
Levine glanced at Soule. “Are you all right hanging out here and keeping an eye on things?”
“This is ridiculous, Agent Levine. We’re the FBI. If you want to talk to this man, our jurisdiction –”
“Will just have to wait,” Johnny interrupted. “Or we could take this to Judge Hathaway’s chambers. I know him well, and I’m sure he’d be delighted to hold an emergency session. In fact, Chris Darnell plays golf with the guy. I could have Chris call as soon as he gets here.”
“Not necessary,” David said. “Just wait here, Agent Soule. We’ll talk in Johnny’s car, and I’ll be back when we’ve got this tussle ironed out.”
They sat in the car in silence for a several minutes.
Finally, David spoke. “You saw me, didn’t you? I thought you might’ve when you pulled Helen away from the ledge and had CSD cut the lights.”
Johnny drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“I should’ve sa
id something, explained what I was doing.”
No response. Just more determined thumping, fleshy pads against leather, slow and rhythmic.
“For God sake, Johnny. Say something. Rail at me. Accuse me of deception!”
“Why? It’s been obvious to me for some time that you’re lying. It’s also pretty clear that it’s about my wife and not your alleged investigation into Sanderfield.”
David cursed. “This isn’t what you think.”
“What do I think? What, if our positions were reversed, would you think Special Agent Levine? Would your red flags be flying, or would you blindly trust someone simply because your wife says he’s trustworthy?”
“Helen doesn’t trust me any more than you do, Johnny, but I swear to you, I am only looking out for her best interests right now.”
“Do you think our investigation, this human trafficking ring, is somehow related to Sully Marcos?”
“Nobody said that.”
“Then why is Joel Soule out here again?”
“Johnny, I cannot tell you that.”
“He’s looking for a dead man, clearly.”
David’s eyes snapped into focus. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. How stupid do you think I am? He shows up in Darkwater Bay mysteriously on the day another one of your agents tries to kill Datello, and all of a sudden, access to the surgical unit where the medical gods are working diligently to save his life is restricted by none other than Agent Soule. Datello survived, and you let Helen anguish in guilt over the fact that she couldn’t save his life.
“What, did he slip away from the almighty FBI, David? Is that why Soule’s here? Does he think Datello is gonna run back to his wife and daughter? Or are you all worried that Helen will kill him too?”
“I never believed for one second that Helen killed anybody!”
Johnny snorted. “Well, I promise you, she has. Your very own Alfred Preston is six feet under thanks to Helen’s aim. She freely admitted that she killed Andy Gillette and Umberto Gutierrez.”
“Defense of others and self defense. That’s not what you implied. I don’t think Helen murdered Rick Hamilton.”
“Franchetta changed his story and said she did it, didn’t he?”
David nodded.
“And was this after I told you what really happened in that park last year?”
“Yes!” David insisted. “Why would I believe a punk like Eddie Franchetta over a woman I’ve known for all her professional career?”
“Because she’s guarded and a world class liar when she thinks it’s justified. She doesn’t let anybody get close to her. She’s an emotional desert.”
“She wasn’t always this way,” David protested. “You didn’t know her before Rick was arrested. She wasn’t… it wasn’t the way it is now. Did they have a great love affair? No. I never saw anything remotely passionate between them, certainly nothing like she has with you. But Helen was happy. She laughed. She cried. She confided her pain to me, Johnny. I knew how some of our cases gnawed at her heart.”
“And after Hamilton’s arrest?”
“I never saw such rampant paranoia from someone who was always rock solid, Johnny. It was like the woman I knew, my friend, my partner on the job, something inside her died that day. Do you know what she did when she got the call that Seleeby arrested her husband?”
“No, as I’m sure you can imagine, Helen is still very guarded about all of that.”
David laughed wryly and dragged one hand over his face. “She plucked a cigar out of one of the detective’s mouths and puffed on it until she turned green. She got drunk that night at dinner and cried her eyes out. The next morning, she filed for divorce. I know for a fact that until the night Rick committed suicide, that the only contact she had with him was in the presence of their attorneys.”
“And this was paranoid?”
“No,” David said. “She thought people assumed she knew. Our team never thought that, but there was no convincing her that we had her back. She thought the term suddenly equated having knives in her back.”
“But Seleeby didn’t believe it.”
“He did,” David insisted. “He believed it until we got the call that Rick was dead. And even then, he was going through the motions. He didn’t really get suspicious until Helen resigned rather than giving a statement after Rick died. So Seleeby served a search warrant. What I know now is that he still wasn’t convinced of her guilt. Not until Franchetta started whispering in his ear.”
“Franchetta,” Johnny spoke the name like the curse it had become. “He keeps cropping up in all of this. I’d really like to know why.”
David shifted in his seat. “You asked if I thought Marcos was connected to all of this, Johnny. I didn’t give you a very specific answer. I owe you that much, and I owe Helen a hell of a lot more than that.”
“I’m listening,” warily.
With a sigh, David admitted what else he knew. “Franchetta claims that Wendell Eriksson was contacting him last year, Johnny, that the man was scrambling to cover up what he swears Helen did. Of course I tore into that investigation, if for no other reason than to prove that Franchetta is a liar of epic proportion.”
“You need proof of that?”
“Not for myself, no. Juries like evidence. But here’s the thing. Somebody was contacting Eddie – even after he was in our custody late last fall. They were very shrewd. Throw away cell phones, calling Franchetta at several shady bars and corner convenience stores Franchetta frequented while he was trying to evade the FBI. Proving that it wasn’t Wendell was quite simple. As you know, inmates aren’t afforded much privacy when they make calls, and even if Wendell had managed to gain special favors at Attica, there wasn’t a single call made by the man without a witness. Usually it was Mike Lucero, whom you know Helen spoke to recently. He hated Wendell. There was no way anyone was going to slip the man a throw away cell. And he was kept segregated from the rest of the population.
“So we started asking ourselves who really was contacting Franchetta, and why was he letting the man believe he was Wendell Eriksson?”
“And?” Johnny’s fingers strangled the steering wheel.
“I’m getting there. Franchetta was convinced that it had to be Wendell because, as he said, the man’s main concern was always Helen. He was the one who suggested that Franchetta remain open to alternate theories on Rick’s demise. He told Eddie that even if he happened to fall into our custody, that he could still get to him – which he did.”
“So do you have more dirty agents at the FBI?”
David chuckled, “No, Helen took care of the one responsible for relaying information to Franchetta. Seleeby brought Preston into that mess, and he managed to stay on the inside even after Agent Soule took over the case. You see, Franchetta told Agent Preston things he wouldn’t say to anyone else. We thought they’d developed some sort of rapport, that Preston was an asset.”
Johnny groaned. “And that’s how the Marcos thing got connected to my human trafficking case. Preston was the link. You think he was threatening Franchetta on behalf of our puppet master out here.”
“While I had a team investigating Sanderfield and going through his records with specific attention to where his campaign funds came from, I was digging into Preston’s past, Johnny, every record I could lay my hands on. I was back in Darkwater Bay already last night because of something I uncovered. Preston was in regular contact with Lyle Henderson.”
Johnny groaned. “And you went to see him, to question him about his relationship with a corrupt FBI agent. You found him dead already.”
“I was afraid that was exactly what I would find the moment I got the call from OSI that our likeliest candidate for the sniper had been found dead across the street from Henderson’s apartment. I needed to arrest Henderson, Johnny. I raced back here as soon as I had the confirmation that Preston was in contact with one of the known suspects in this case. I was too late.”
“So why the elaborate pretense
a little while ago? Why get the search warrant?”
“Same reason you did,” David said. “I knew what was in that apartment, and it had to be officially uncovered. I wanted to maintain the integrity of the entire case.”
“You might’ve just mentioned this to Chris and me out at OSI,” Johnny growled.
“Or you could’ve confronted me immediately with what you saw rather than hiding Helen away from me like I’m some kind of threat to her. God knows I don’t blame you for wanting to keep her out of this and protect her, but I think you’ve known her long enough by now to know that the best way to keep her out of trouble is by not letting the woman out of your sight for even five seconds. She won’t be forcibly removed from the investigation, Johnny.”
“I know,” he said. “Which is why Crevan’s with her right now.”
“Her brother? Seriously? You think he’ll be able to stop her?”
“Of course not,” Johnny said. “But I can at least keep tabs on where he is. Not only is his car equipped with GPS, we’ve been pinging his cell phone since I sent him to the house. Helen’s too smart for that. She’s ditched cell phones in the past to avoid detection, used old cars that can’t be tracked by satellite.”
David chuckled in disbelief. “And you think that Crevan’s naiveté will slow her down? Johnny, she’ll teach him ways to avoid detection that he probably never conceived – if she hasn’t done so already. This isn’t just some random case to her. It’s her life. Somebody is out here silencing every possible information leak that exists. Do you really think he’s going to leave any living evidence?”
“Sherman,” Johnny said. “She’s the only other link left that we know of.”
“And her incarceration is the only thing that has prevented her death since Helen unwittingly uncovered the truth,” David said. “I wouldn’t worry about this puppet master as you called him getting to her as much as I would Helen.”
Johnny smacked a hand against his forehead. “And she’s waiting for DNA results that could prove that Sherman’s been part of this mess her whole life.”
He started the car.
“Wait! We’re leaving?”