Sins of the Father (42 page)

“Honey?”

“Did you ignore a phone call earlier?”

“Shit. He called the house.”

I really wished I could hear a question in
that statement, but there was none. “He’s on the kitchen counter as
we speak.”

“Physically?” Concern dialed high in his
voice, the fault being that apparently Johnny hasn’t forgotten that
he married a murderer, whether the acts were justifiable or
not.

“On the telephone. He’s acting like this is
a matter of life and death. May I please have your blessing to tell
him to fu–”

“You may not,” Johnny chuckled. “But yeah,
he called, and I felt that whatever made him stoop to reach out to
the likes of me, a man he couldn’t berate hard enough a few weeks
ago, wasn’t as important as this call to you-know-who.”

Wendell. For five blessed minutes, I
completely forgot about my father. “Well, he acted like… I’m not
sure whose life or death situation it was, so I figured I should
call you if for no other reason than to make sure you’re all
right.”

“I’m pulling up to the garage now. Tell him
I’ll call him back, that we’ve got something else to deal with
first.”

“Done,” I could hear the rumble of the
garage door anyway. Two steps away, Collangelo waited my response.
“Mr. Collangelo, I just spoke with Johnny. He’ll call you later. We
have a more pressing engagement at the moment, so if you’ll –”

“Terrell Sanderfield was assassinated on
Hennessey Island this morning. I need Johnny.”

Our eyes met, his from the kitchen doorway,
mine where I surely left indentations of a death grip on the
telephone. “Tell me,” I said.

“I’d rather speak to Johnny about this
matter.”

“Too fucking bad, Collangelo. You’re not
dealing with him anymore. Tell me what happened.”

“Helen?”

“He’s there, I can hear him,” Collangelo
said. “Put Johnny on the phone.”

I pressed the cold plastic to my chest and
hissed, “He said Sanderfield was assassinated on Hennessey Island
this morning. If that were true, don’t you think Briscoe would’ve
called us by now?”

Johnny’s eyes widened. “Give me the phone,
Helen.”

I twisted away, one finger snaked out in
defiance and hit the speaker function on the telephone. “He can
hear you. More importantly, we can both hear about this alleged
assassination.”

“Johnny, I need to speak with you in
private.”

He pinned me to the floor with little more
than the stoic stare frozen on his face.

“Johnny?”

“I’m here, Joe, but I can’t imagine why
Helen shouldn’t be part of any conversation we have. Especially if
it’s about Terrell Sanderfield.”

Joe fell silent. In that particle charged
pause, I heard gears in his head grind quickly before halting in an
instant. A laugh was shrouded in disbelief. “Oh my God. It’s been
about you this whole time, hasn’t it, Dr. Eriksson?”

“Listen, asshole. If I have to tell you one
more time –”

“Fine, Dr.
Orion
.”

I could almost hear him shaking his head, at
least picture it.

“You didn’t abandon the cause because of
your wife, did you Johnny? She’s been part of the whole thing.
She’s why you got the FBI embroiled in my suspicions that
Sanderfield was accepting illegal campaign contributions.”

“You sound disappointed,” drollness was not
a good approach at this point.

“I’m delighted, if you must know, Helen. In
fact… my God. Has the whole thing been a ruse, Johnny?”

My eyes impaled my husband. “A ruse?”

Johnny grabbed the receiver and quickly
disengaged the speaker function. His turn to hold the implement to
his chest. “You should make that call, Helen. I’ll finish with Joe
and join you in a minute.”

“Like hell you will!”

“I trust you,” he said. “Please trust me
too.”

It was too late. The spark of doubt and dark
imagination collided in that instant. Yet Johnny mustn’t know. I
averted my eyes quickly under the guise of nodding acquiescence.
“Five minutes of his bullshit and no more, and then I expect a full
accounting of what this so called ruse was, Johnny.”

I turned away, but Johnny grabbed my wrist
and tugged me back. Fervent words whispered against my neck, just
below my left ear. “Joe’s a fool, Helen. There is no ruse. I love
you. Just because I’ve got more insight than he does, it won’t
change the truth. Please trust me.”

The battle between head and heart waged
anew. Damn this man!

“Helen?”

I nodded.

“Look at me before you go,” and I could feel
his eyes probing, doing that lie detector thing before I yielded to
the command.

Must not know. Must not see the truth this
time. Must be alone. No co-conspirators this time.

I tilted my jaw upward and gave him a watery
smile. “Hormones,” I offered. “Forgive me?”

Relief washed his expression clean of all
doubt, all fear. “I love you, Helen.”

And I’m not stupid.

Ruse
.

What a horrid little four-letter word. It
was all a ruse. I knew what Collangelo meant just the same as
Johnny did. What was this? Some kind of massive sting to trap me?
To finally deliver me to the FBI for Rick’s murder? What other
crimes were they tacking onto my tally? Dad’s liberation from
Attica came to mind. And then that would’ve revealed how I helped
Ronnie escape the noose when his nephew was mowing down pedestrians
left and right in Buffalo. Did they know the truth about Scott
Madden, how I coached him into insanity so he didn’t have to
sacrifice his life for doing the right thing to Fulk Underwood?

Every transgression, every lie I ever told
rippled through memory. It was a literal tsunami of vigilantism,
smugness that my way far surpassed what the criminal justice system
would ever mete out.

And what of the tiny babies growing in my
belly? Had that been an accident? Just an unforeseen consequence
perhaps, because I was so damned difficult to convince.

Johnny’s arms slid around the bump, literal
and figurative.

“Baby –”

“Don’t,” I warned. “He thinks all of this
was to get close to me, to trap me because God knows, my arrival in
Darkwater Bay was no accident.”

“He’s reopening OSI.”

I snorted. “Under whose command this
time?”

“Mine. Again.”

I twisted free of the fleshy cage. “Then
you’ve chosen.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s OSI or me, Johnny. I won’t live with
your
ruse
hanging over my head ‘til death do us part.”

“Do I at least get to explain his
misconception before I’m damned?”

“You mean he didn’t assume that you married
me to –”

Johnny grabbed my upper arms and shook
lightly. “He realized that we were looking at Sanderfield for
something far more serious than illegal campaign contributions,
Helen, which is exactly what you uncovered when you linked Sherman
to the human trafficking ring. You knew that I suspected Sherman of
giving money to Sanderfield under the table.”

Remorse is a bitter venom.

Johnny’s held me against his chest before I
realized I was crying. “Shh. It’s all right, Helen.”

“How can you say that when I am black as sin
and filthy to the core? Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that the
reason I don’t trust people is because I know that I cannot be
trusted?”

He tilted my chin up with one finger. “So
you shot Sanderfield this morning? Oh, wait. No… I distinctly
remember that you haven’t been out of my sight for long before the
time in question.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know
it!”

Thumbs brushed the scalding moisture from my
cheeks. “Is this because you called Wendell after I left to go pick
up a new disposable phone?” At my stunned, caught-red-handed stare,
he continued. “I knew you would, Doc. What did he say?”

“He made me promise to stay away from this
investigation.”

“Is that all of it?”

I shook my head.

“Helen, do you think your father could’ve
done something today?”

“It was a number in Europe, Johnny. He
couldn’t possibly have been on the phone with me in Sweden after
knocking off Sanderfield this morning.”

“But he knows people.”

“My father knows other killers?” I scoffed.
“Only the losers he helped put in prison. He would’ve never had a
partner, never done anything that careless –”

“Yet he was caught because of a partnership
with Marie. He wasn’t too proud to manipulate me into making sure
the FBI got off your tail either.”

“Can we please not lay this sin at his feet
without any real evidence? I’m tired of this constant leap to judge
him first.”

“Well, he did sort of earn it by reputation,
Helen.”

Speaking of earning a reputation, I frowned.
“Johnny, why would Collangelo think that OSI would be ideal to
investigate the murder of its most vocal opponent?”

Finally, something made him grin. “Because
at this point, Joe realizes there are only four people on the face
of the earth that hate him as much as Terrell Sanderfield did. And
we were all part of OSI.”

Chapter 40

The rest of our
quiet Sunday was a whirlwind of insanity. Collangelo called a press
conference, I swear, the second he got off the phone with Johnny
and announced the murder of Senator Terrell Sanderfield.

My disgust was difficult to suppress.

“While Senator Sanderfield and I were
opponents in the political arena, that animosity did not extend to
my personal opinion of the man. He was a dedicated public servant,
sworn to uphold the honor and the trust of his constituency, and
serve the whole of this state by means that he and his party
represent. We owe a debt to the citizens of this state, to see that
justice is achieved for this great man by the swift resolution of
his murder and capture of his assailant. As such, I am officially
reestablishing the Office of the Special Investigator under the
command of John Orion who is already in contact and working with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation –”

“Are you now?” I interrupted the political
blather and shot Johnny a pointed stare.

“David is on his way from Montgomery, Helen.
For the time being, Crevan and Dev are providing oversight out on
Hennessey Island with the Darkwater Bay PD. Don’t mistake Joe’s
message. The bureau is running this case. We’re little more than
window dressing at this point.”

“And what about afterward?”

Unfortunately, Johnny wasn’t thinking very
far in advance. I couldn’t stop it any more than the general
insanity swirling around us. It was the eye of a very psychotic
hurricane. Somewhere out there, an individual with guts took a long
range shot at Senator Terrell Sanderfield and literally blew his
head off.

Oh, Johnny didn’t want to give me the
details, but I’m persistent that way. Truly, it would’ve only taken
a single phone call to Maya, a swift patch-up of our fractured
friendship, and she’d have spilled the whole thing to me. I could
almost hear the irreverence fall from her lips at the crime scene.
Old goat lost his head. And they say there’s no justice in the
universe.

No, Maya Winslow would not find empathy for
this particular victim, not when she knew I believed he was part of
the reason Annalyn Villanueva ended up dead on the shore of the
bay. Not after I told her that he was part of the corrupt
enterprise that snatched me from a bassinet at Saint Mary’s
Hospital almost 39 years ago.

Johnny wanted the assassin. I didn’t doubt
it for one millisecond. Hell, I could practically see the desire
dripping from his canines. I wondered, as he acquiesced to my
insistent demand to accompany him to the crime scene, if he
considered for even the briefest flash of a moment that
Sanderfield’s death didn’t make this thing over.

I couldn’t forget about Lyle Henderson. I
wondered where he was on this bright, sunny Sunday. And was he
really the puppet master? Every time we inched closer to figuring
something out, one of the players turned up dead.

Alleged conspirators, I should say. Yet
something about these deaths screamed logic through the twists and
turns of doubt in my mind. Why were they all willing to die? Alfred
Preston. Umberto Gutierrez. Andy Gillette. Destiny Gerard. Had
Danny Datello been willing to die too?

I looked at his murder in a different light.
The man was no fool. He’d constructed an elaborate scheme to get
information to the FBI about his uncle Sully Marcos. My ex-husband
and the marriage to the ugly duckling being courted by the FBI. He
had to know that Preston wasn’t offering a legitimate deal from the
bureau. Would he be a lamb willingly led to the slaughter?

It boggled my mind.

What bothered me even more was the tiny
filaments that seemed to crisscross and weave around a web, one in
which the center could not be completely denied.

Me.

But why? I’m no one. Especially now. I was a
cog in the federal wheel, and perhaps cog was generous. Maybe more
like a minuscule nubbin. I had no power, little influence. There
was no political clout I wielded. Hell, I ripped my page from Dad’s
playbook when it came to staying under the recognition radar. At
least until I came to Darkwater Bay.

I tried to convince myself that these
thoughts were merely grandiose, that I’d wrapped myself up so
deeply in lies and intrigue that it warped my ability to look at
anything objectively.

Yellow police tape flapped in the afternoon
breeze at the crime scene like some sort of obscene party streamer.
People, come one, come all! Dance on the grave of the
politician
. They were out en masse. Bay Division had barricades
– two of them in fact. One corralled the press, who for some god
awful unknown reason, were allowed too close to the crime scene for
my tastes. The other kept the spectators more than a respectable
distance from their fallen leader.