Cloaked in Blood (17 page)

Dad’s car, a sixteen year old black sedan,
rolled up the driveway and drove around to the side of the house
where he parked in front of the garage.  I heard the rumble of
the door.  Johnny was waiting to let him inside, to hide the
car.  Couldn’t count on privacy unless the vehicle was
completely out of sight.

My heart thundered away in my chest. 
What if Johnny couldn’t go through with this?  What if he took
one look at Datello and they came to blows?  I wasn’t sure Dad
and I possessed the skills between the two of us to separate
them.  Dad’s old.  I’m four months pregnant and looking
closer to six.

I waited in the foyer.  No
shouts.  No grunts.  No crashing bodies through
walls.  Not even a single gunshot.

“Helen?”

I turned at the steady sound of Dad’s voice
and saw Johnny and Datello standing behind him.  Neither one
of them looked too certain of the wisdom of this
face-to-face.  Behind my eyelids, I saw the rapid
disintegration of civility. 

“Thank you for coming, both of you,” I
said.  Dad was in street clothes.  Danny still wore his
monkish cloak.  He’d at least lowered the hood.  Handsome
guy, if I were completely honest.  Whatever work he’d had
done, Celeste would probably appreciate it.  I wondered if
we’d ever close this wretched case and have the opportunity for
better lives.

Johnny swept one hand toward the living
room.  “Let’s sit and have this conversation.”

Datello hung back until I reached his
side.  “Helen,” he said quietly, “are you sure about
this?”

“Do you trust Celeste?”

He sighed.  “Fine.  I get it that
you trust Orion.  But I think this this truce between the two
of us is too new to offer much in the way of reassurance.”

“You’re still walking around
undetected.  It’s been two days since we met, Danny. 
That would’ve been plenty of time to summon the FBI if that were my
intent.  It isn’t.”

“Well, I haven’t been shot or beaten within
an inch of my life yet, so I suppose that’s a good sign too.”

Johnny reappeared.  “Are the two of you
coming?”

“In a minute,” I said.  Our eyes met
for the briefest of moments.  “Remember how wise Celeste is,”
I said for Datello’s ears only.  “If you can’t trust much,
believe that.  She’s been right about everything else. 
She’d want you here, Danny.”

He nodded curtly and strode with me into the
living room.  When I sat, he took his place at my right.

“What can I tell you, Commander Orion?”

Johnny cleared his throat and avoided eye
contact with all of us.  “Did Wendell tell you that I’d like
you to remain here while we attempt to resolve this case?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I understand
why.  We talked about what possible reason you’d have to keep
me under wraps, commander, and it occurs to me that it’s probably
the result of distrust.  I can’t exactly blame you for
that.”

“Nonsense,” Johnny said.  “If I didn’t
trust at least in your innocence where most of the accusations
against you are concerned, I’d have called Agent Soule
myself.  I want you here because I think you probably have
important information you’re not even aware of.  If you’re
part of this process, it moves things to the resolution
quicker.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Datello
said.  “I really wasn’t aware that Umberto Gutierrez was
smuggling slaves through Darkwater Bay on one of my ships.  If
I’d had any idea that Destiny was breaking the law, I’d have never
kept her on my payroll, let alone designated her as my power of
attorney or turned over control of Datello Enterprises to her after
my arrest.”

“I want information,” Johnny said.  “I
know what Celeste said about Mitch Southerby, and I know that you
confirmed some of it to Helen the other day.  I also know that
the FBI claims that Sully is unaware that they’ve got the evidence
David Ireland held against him.”

“If that’s true, which I doubt, they’re
completely clueless.  Uncle Sully knew years ago that someone
was informing the FBI of his activities.  He didn’t know it
was me.  I was careful to only call when I was in different
cities.  It wasn’t until David Ireland got involved that the
link to Darkwater Bay was made.”

“Are you saying that Sully found out because
the FBI traced the information back here?” Wendell asked. 
Alarm sparked in his eyes.  I recognized it immediately. 
How did we know after all, that Southerby identified himself to the
bureau as the informant?  Only because David said so.

“Yes,” Datello said.  “It wasn’t long
until Mitch showed up out here to question me.  I was Uncle
Sully’s only remaining link to this city.  My parents were
both deceased by then.  He hated it that I came back
here.  I made it clear to him that my presence did not
green-light him setting up shop in town.”

Johnny snorted.  “I hope you realize
that wouldn’t have stopped a man like Sullivan Marcos.  He’s
used to doing exactly what he wants, wherever he pleases.”

“I was naïve,” Danny said.  “I realize
that now, and I know for a fact that I was surrounded with people
who were loyal to him, not me.”

“The men Southerby used last Christmas?” I
asked.

He nodded.  “Most of them were on my
payroll.  I suppose they were really on Uncle Sully’s.”

“None of them has said a word to anyone but
their lawyers,” Johnny said.  “But let’s get back to Ireland’s
murder.  He didn’t come into possession of the disk because
you gave it to him, correct?”

“No,” Datello said.  “He got it from my
lawyer.”

“Carlos Stefano?” I asked.

Danny shook his head.  “His brother
Dayton, who was later disbarred.  He was a good man,
Helen.  Ethical.”

I recalled the story Ned Williams told me
before he died, that Dayton Stefano had been disbarred for
violating privilege and turning over evidence against his client, a
pedophile, to the district attorney’s office.  “I’m aware of
his history.  How exactly did that disk fall into David
Ireland’s hands?”

“They were working a case together, an
accusation of fraud in one of the local unions.  It got mixed
in with some files Dayton submitted to the DA in defense of the
union.  It was one of those sour grapes things, one union
wanting control and alleging fraud against their competitor. 
It was a baseless charge, and Ireland realized it quickly.”

“But David had your evidence against Sully,”
I said.

“He did.  It was a simple matter of
going to him and explaining that a personal file had been included
with Dayton’s other information, really.  I just never
anticipated that he’d crack the code I used to encrypt the
information.”

“So the
honor thy father
business was
your code?” Johnny asked.

Datello stared at his hands, folded loosely
in his lap.  They twitched with a bit of tension, reluctance
maybe.  “I know you think I’m a terrible person, Johnny, and
I’m not proud of a lot of things that I’ve done in my life, but I
loved my father.  I’m a pretty devoutly religious man, even
though I’ve drifted away from certain church functions.”

Johnny glanced at Wendell.  “Like
confession.”

“Yeah.  I wanted Uncle Sully to pay for
what he did to my father.  When Ireland told me he understood
the information on that disk, I was very concerned.”

“You didn’t trust him?” Wendell asked.

“No, it was my knowledge of Uncle Sully’s
reaction to anybody compiling evidence against him that had me
concerned.  David Ireland was a good man.  He had a
family.  I was fearful for all of them, if his involvement was
ever discovered.”

“Which it was,” I said.

“Yeah.  I’ve never forgiven myself for
what happened to him, Helen.”

Johnny gave Datello a hard stare.  “How
did Southerby find out that Ireland was allegedly trying to help
you?”

“He was in town awhile before he made his
presence known to me,” Danny admitted.  “He followed me, saw
me meet with David several times.  We were trying to determine
the best way to get the evidence to the authorities without putting
anyone’s life at risk.”

“And?” Johnny prompted.

“He showed up in my penthouse uninvited,
asked why I was so chummy with a district attorney.  I
panicked.  I told him that David and I were working together
on that fraud case against the union that represented my
fishermen.”

“He didn’t buy it, did he?” I asked.

“Clearly not.  I told David that he was
here, begged him to get rid of the disk, mail it anonymously to the
feds, hide it in a safety deposit box, anything.  I told him
we couldn’t meet anymore, at least not while Uncle Sully had me
under Southerby’s thumb.”

“What did David do?” Johnny asked.

“I’m not entirely certain, but I suspected
that he contacted the FBI and tried to make it appear that
Southerby was the information leak.  I suppose he thought that
if Uncle Sully suspected his own man, he might retaliate against
him instead of us.”

“And that was when Southerby murdered David
Ireland,” I said.  “He ransacked his office looking for the
disk.”

“Thank God David heeded my advice and hid
it.”

“He did,” I said.  “And his wife was
the only one who knew where it was.  Did you know that she
buried it with him, Danny?”

He shook his head.  “Not until I got
back to Darkwater Bay on Christmas Eve.  They told me they
were getting the evidence back once and for all.  If I went
along, they’d only kill me.  If I tried to stop them, they
claimed to have someone in Hawaii ready to kill my wife.”

“So you drove the car,” Johnny said.

“I wouldn’t have come back at all, but Mitch
called me hours before I got back and said he was meeting with
Helen, that he’d get the truth out of her about what happened to
Rick.”  He turned to me with real regret in his eyes.  “I
knew what that meant, Helen.  I might’ve hated you for what
happened to my cousin, but nobody deserved to suffer the way
Southerby hurt people.  Nobody.”

Johnny dragged one hand down his face. 
“Of course, we assumed Southerby was acting on your orders.”

“Understandable,” Danny said.  “We
haven’t exactly been admirers over the years, commander.”

“Johnny,” he said.  “You can call me
Johnny.  Particularly since you came back to try to save my
wife’s life.”

“I didn’t want her dead; I wanted her in
prison,” Datello said. 

“I don’t understand something,” Dad
said.  “If Southerby was caught for Ireland’s murder, and he
confessed, how did he manage to escape without somebody’s
help?”

I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear
rather than go through the whole sordid mess.  “Dad, it’s a
very long story.”

He crossed his legs and nestled into his
chair.  “I’ve got time, Sprout.  Humor me.”

“Jerry Lowe,” Johnny said.  “Though for
the life of me, I can’t figure out how he got involved in any of
this.  We suspected that you were involved in Lowe’s rise to
power in the police department.”

Datello’s eyes darkened.  “I most
certainly was not.  I had nothing to do with the police
department.  I was a close family friend of Frank and Dennis
Bennett, as you well know.  Do you think I was unaware of how
they felt about Jerry Lowe?  I assure you, I knew full well
what they thought of the man.”

It was another detail that hadn’t occurred
to me months ago.  Why would Datello support Lowe’s rise to
power if he was so tight with the Bennett family?  Yet
somebody was supportive.  Somebody powerful. 

Details about Darkwater Bay began flickering
through my mind.  Tony Briscoe’s history lessons, the
blackmail of George Hardy and Donald Weber, Harry McNamara’s
murder, the multitude of details that didn’t quite add up. 
Somebody most certainly wanted Lowe in power.  But who? 
Why?  What other horrors were we going to uncover in the
course of this investigation?

“Helen?”  Johnny snapped his fingers in
front of my nose.

“Hmm.”

“Is she all right?” Datello asked.

Dad was chuckling.  “She’s fine,
gentlemen.  Johnny, I’m sure you’ve realized what that glazed
look is all about, but Danny really doesn’t know more than his
misperceptions of Helen over the years.  Give over,
Sprout.  What did you just realize?”

“I was just wondering why Jerry Lowe would
approach Southerby with a solution to his predicament after you and
Briscoe arrested him for David Ireland’s murder, Johnny.  Do
you remember what he said to me when I arrested him for Gwen’s
murder?”

Confusion inched over Johnny’s
forehead.  “Which thing?”

“That his arrest was only the
beginning.  He made some cryptic remark to Crevan and me about
Darkwater Bay, and secrets that aren’t meant to remain
buried.  At the time, I thought it was the beginning of his
insanity act.  I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Helen, don’t even think about it,” Johnny
growled.

“There’s no question now, nothing to think
about.”

“What’re you saying, Helen?” Datello
asked.

“I forbid it!”

Dad chuckled.  “Good luck with that,
Johnny.  I’m her father, and I never got away with forbidding
anything.”

“Forbid what?” Datello interjected once
again.  “What have I missed.”

I turned toward him, drew one leg up on the
sofa.  “Jerry Lowe helped Mitch Southerby fake his
death.  He framed you for years, Danny, made everyone believe
that you were the root of every crime in this city.  He didn’t
act on that without direction from higher up.”

“You think
he’s
involved in this
slavery ring?”

“No,” I said.  “I think it just served
his perverse needs to be the go-to guy in the police
department.  But he knows the names of the people who pulled
the strings.  He liked messing with the justice system. 
He really liked screwing with my husband’s head.  And Jerry
Lowe told me that he knew I was the one, that I’d figure all of
this out.  He said he wished he’d be around to watch it all
unfold.”