Cloaked in Blood (28 page)

“Please share it then,” Johnny said.

“Maybe she doesn’t want you to be
disappointed in her, Johnny.”

“The truth I can handle.  It’s her lies
that are killing me.”

Chapter 27

When Johnny showed up for lunch, my red
flags should’ve unfurled into the wind.  But his mood was so
pleasant and solicitous, I simply wanted to bask in the adoration
and pretend that normalcy would eventually be in our grasp.

It was the look I caught glimpses of while
we ate, the fact that Danny took his plate and retreated to parts
unknown that jerked me out of such a wonderful delusion. 
David.  It had to be David.  He must’ve called Johnny and
–

The sigh interrupted my theorizing.

“Well, I suppose I should get back to
work.”

“So soon?  You haven’t even finished
lunch yet.  Want to split a piece of cake with me?”

The gaze grew wistful.

“He told you, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

“David.  He called and told you I had a
nightmare about Jerry Lowe.  Damn that man!  I knew I
couldn’t trust him.”

Johnny carefully folded his napkin and laid
it on the table.  His chair slid back.  Instead of
walking toward the garage, he went the opposite direction, toward
our bedroom.  I followed, expecting a discussion in a room
that guaranteed privacy.  Instead, he detoured into his closet
and pulled out a suitcase.

“What are you doing?  Johnny, why are
you packing a bag?”

“I’m leaving.”

“
What
?  Why?”

He pinned me with all the anger I chose not
to see during our aborted meal.  “Because you’re doing it
again, and goddammit, Helen, I won’t live like this.  You
don’t trust me.  Fine.  I get it.  I
accept
it.  God knows I’ve done everything I know how to try to
change that, but it’s just impossible.  I beg for honesty, you
tell the truth when it suits you, and bam!  I turn around and
you’re confiding in someone other than me.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Johnny
held up one hand.

“Too little, too late, Helen.  I don’t
want your confession because I cornered you.  It’s not fair to
me.  I shouldn’t have to live the rest of my life waiting,
hoping that you’ll come to your senses and realize that I should be
the
first
person you turn to, not the one of last
resort.”

“Johnny –”

“No, Helen.  I’m done.”

“Dad has been watching Lyle Henderson. 
He saw him pay off an orderly last night.  A few hours later,
that same orderly was killed in a hit and run accident.”

Johnny clenched the half opened suitcase in
both hands.  He didn’t respond.

“When I called Maya for an update on the DNA
this morning, she told me about it.  I screwed up.  I
mentioned the guy’s first name.  Dad read it off his
identification badge.  She assumed that I learned about if
from OSI, that since the crime happened so close to where
Sanderfield was murdered that you were interested, at least to see
if there was a connection between the two crimes.”

“And again, you’re telling me this because
as you’ve probably surmised, I already know this.”

“I called David too,” I said.  “I
realized that who he thought he saw meeting with Kelly and Varden
last spring might not have been Jerry Lowe.” 
Deep breath,
Helen. 
“It wasn’t Jerry.  He doesn’t know who it
was, but it wasn’t Jerry Lowe.”

Johnny’s fists clenched the suitcase
tightly.  “This all might’ve meant something if I didn’t have
to threaten to leave you to get you to confide in me, Helen.”

“I sneaked out to meet Jerry Lowe this
morning.”

He slammed the suitcase down on the
floor.  “After I expressly forbid it?”

“Why do you think I lied, huh?  You
dictate, hand down your edicts, and you won’t even listen to my
reasons!  I learned something very important from that
conversation, something that proved other people wanted to stop me
from ever coming here, Johnny, people that had nothing to do with
Jerry Lowe!”

Johnny spat in disgust, “You really will
trust anybody
but
me, won’t you, Helen?  He weaves some
elaborate tale that feeds your paranoia, and because it’s what you
want to hear, you just eat it up like it’s fucking candy.”

He picked up the suitcase and started
filling it.

“Please don’t leave me.”

“Why?  I came home today, hoping that
you’d simply tell me what you’re doing.  But this is all
that’s ever got your attention.  Well, like I said, it’s just
too late.”

“Call David if you don’t believe me. 
He’ll tell you that Lowe wasn’t the man he saw meeting with Varden
and Kelly.”

He didn’t respond, just kept tossing socks
and underwear into his damned suitcase.  I stomped toward the
dresser and swept the suitcase onto the floor.  “Dammit,
listen to me!  I don’t trust Jerry Lowe, but I don’t believe
that he’s the man who sent those private investigators after
me.  They sent that mail to Gwen Foster unwittingly, because
Lowe used them to mess with your head, Johnny.  Think about
who Jerry Lowe is.  He loved to play games.  No way would
he have relied on anyone else to knowingly do his dirty work. 
He stalked your friend for years.  Do you think he didn’t know
you were looking out for her?  He was, still
is
, a
master of manipulation, of playing games.”

Johnny regarded me warily.  “But now
he’s telling the truth.”

“He knows who has been pulling strings in
this city all along.  He’s had his finger in every bit of
everybody’s pie, Johnny.  That was what he did, how he
controlled his little kingdom.  He knew that Crevan… that I’m
that long lost child, Johnny.  Jerry Lowe recognized me.”

“How?  How is that possible?”

“He’s shrewd.  I have no idea how his
mind works, but I won’t lie and say it doesn’t fascinate me. 
Every time I’ve ever talked to the man, he was angling for some
kind of advantage.  He did it again this morning.”

Johnny reached for me, but hesitated. 
I leapt for the opening and flung my arms around him.  “I love
you.  You promised that you would never leave me.  You
swore that you’d always be here for our family, Johnny.”

“That’s not fair,” he protested.

“Fairness be damned.  I need you. 
I shouldn’t have lied, and I know that my apologies and promises
mean nothing to you, Johnny.  I’m not trying to make
excuses.  It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that
sometimes you smother me when you always say no.  Do you think
I don’t understand that some of my ideas are dangerous?  I do,
but they still are valid.  I’d be safer if you didn’t fight me
every step of the way, if I could count on you being there as my
backup instead of sneaking off to see Jerry Lowe alone.  You
can’t forbid me to do things, Johnny.  Every time you do,
you’re upset with me for what you think is defiance.  I’m
telling you now.  It’s not about defying your wishes. 
This is just who I am.” 

I started to pull away.

“If you can’t handle the truth, then maybe
our marriage really was a mistake.”

His arms tightened.  “Don’t say
that.”

“Are you willing to listen to me now?”

“I’ve always listened, baby.  I just
don’t always agree with what you think needs to happen.  Sue
me.  I’d rather not see you shot or locked in an oubliette or
hauled out to sea and sold into slavery.”

“I’m not asking for agreement.  I need
to know if you’ve got my back, even if you don’t like where my…
front is going.”

“You’ve got to stop lying to me when I say
something you don’t want to hear.”

“Then stop saying no every time you don’t
like where my instincts say we need to go.”

He peered down at me.  “And what are
they telling you now?”

“Lyle Henderson, probably even Melissa
Sherman, is in danger, Johnny.  Jerry Lowe agreed not to see
Lyle anymore this morning.”

“Oh really?”

I nodded.  “He knows who’s behind this
whole rotten deal, but he won’t tell me.  He said he’d love to
discuss if his theory is right after I figure it all out.”

“And from that you surmised that whoever the
puppet master is, Lyle and Melissa are in danger?”

“No, I realized that after Maya told me that
this tech Dad saw in Lyle’s apartment last night was hit by a
Cadillac and died.”

“Don’t suppose you considered that Wendell
might’ve been the driver, did you?”

“Of course I considered it.  We had a
rather spectacular argument as well.  But he wants the answers
as much as I do, Johnny.  We all need to know the truth. 
And as long as dead bodies are raining from Darkwater Bay’s cloudy
skies, the window on finding the truth is closing very
quickly.”

“Did
he
know you planned to sneak
into Dunhaven and visit Lowe?”

“Are you kidding?  He nearly had a
stroke when I told him what I did.  Sometimes I swear it feels
like the only person in all of this who remotely understands my
desperation is Danny Datello.”

“That terrifies me as much as anything else,
Helen.”

“Why?  Don’t tell me you’re jealous of
him too.”

“No, of course I’m not
jealous
per
se.  It’s that kindred desperation that worries me. 
Sometimes I think the two of you have a little more in common than
I’d like to admit.  Before you get angry over that remark, I
should probably –”

“No, you don’t have to explain.  I do
understand it, and you’re right.  Celeste was right.  She
said that she thought Danny and I would’ve made an unstoppable team
if we could just stop hating each other long enough to see how
similar we really are.”

“He killed Salvatore Masconi, Helen.”

“And I killed Rick Hamilton.  Yet here
he is, helping us.  How can you doubt that he wants the truth,
needs
it every bit as much as I do, Johnny?”

“I don’t doubt it.  But it still
worries me.”  He hugged me close, brushed kisses into my
hair.  “So where does the infamous Eriksson gut say we go from
here?”

I cringed.  He wasn’t going to like it
one little bit.

“I think it’s high time we had a formal
conversation with Lyle Henderson.”

“Over my dead –” the snarl died in his
throat.  “Official?”

“After Maya gets the DNA results on Melissa
Sherman.  I think he’s protecting her because of my mother,
well, Marie Eriksson.”

“So the old goat has a soft spot for one of
his step-children?”

“If the DNA results show that Melissa
Sherman is really my father’s daughter, then I’m pretty sure we’re
on the right track with all of this.”

Chapter 28

Wendell waited until nightfall before he
donned the current disguise and made his way up the staircase to
the top floor of the building across the street from Lyle
Henderson’s apartment.  Coveralls were splotched with old
white paint.  He wore the baseball cap embroidered with
Steele Heating and Air Conditioning
’s logo on it pulled low
enough for the bill to shield his eyes from anyone who might meet
him unawares. 

Inside the tool box were in fact, tools of
his
trade.  A disassembled rifle.  A long range,
high-power scope.  Night vision goggles.  A .50 caliber
Desert Eagle handgun.  A silencer.  Handcuffs.  A
switchblade.  A small Sig Sauer P250 subcompact .9 millimeter
was tucked into his ankle holster.

Never let it be said that Wendell Eriksson
showed up to
any
kind of fight unprepared. 

He cracked the door open to the roof and
cautiously peered through into the misty darkness.  Damn, but
Helen wasn’t joking about the fog in Darkwater Bay.  It rolled
into town just after sunset and blanketed everything in a damp,
muffled shroud. 

Wendell cursed himself a million times over
for leaving the rooftop last night.  If only he’d stayed, this
could all be over by now.  He could’ve made the vehicle that
killed Nate Parker, could’ve tracked it down to the elusive bastard
that seemed to use Darkwater Bay as the shadow that kept him
obscured. 

One thing was certain.  Nobody
threatened his daughter and lived to tell the tale.  Damned
sentimentality had prevented him from slipping into the city,
taking care of business, and vanishing once again.  Helen
didn’t
need
to know he’d been there.  For that matter,
she didn’t need these ridiculous answers she thought a proper
investigation would supply.

He supposed, on one hand, that his love for
her created this ludicrous indulgence.  If Helen wanted
answers, how could he deny her that?  But the idea that his
DNA was being spun in a laboratory on the other side of town, that
the delicate filaments would be compared to this Melissa Sherman’s,
it bothered him.  And not because he expected confirmation of
Helen’s suspicions.  He didn’t care one way or the
other. 

Wendell Eriksson feared something
else.  In his gut, he knew it nearly forty years ago. 
And in a matter of hours, he’d know the truth, that his suspicions
about his wife were more than a dirty cop’s paranoia.

“Forgive me, Helen,” he whispered.  The
body count was about to grow.  It would be simple
really.  Wait for this partner of Lyle’s to tip his hand, and
then with the flick of a finger, Wendell would take out every
living link to a very old deception.

Did it bother him that he’d have to kill
more people?  Maybe they deserved it for thinking to profit
off the misery of others.  Maybe they’d earned a very special
place in hell right alongside Wendell’s other victims.

This was about more than justice. 
Wendell was breaking his cardinal rule, one he had pounded into
Helen’s head when she was bullied as a child. 
It can never
be personal, Sprout.  They’ll get theirs, whether we intervene
or not.