Cloaked in Blood (29 page)

The way Wendell saw it, that blind lady who
was supposed to balance the scales failed more often than
not.  Whether he wanted to admit it now didn’t matter. 
This
was
personal.  Truth be told, it had always been
personal, from the bastard that slaughtered his pregnant wife –
Wendell’s first kill – to burning Thomas Peterson Senior
alive.  They were personal.  They mattered.  They
hurt the world one last time, and then they died.

The door on the roof squealed in protest
when he pushed it open.  The gasp gave him pause.  A man
stood across the vast space and just enough to the left to remain
out of Wendell’s direct line of sight through the slivered opening
through the door.

“Who are you?  What are you doing
here?”

Wendell’s vision was excellent, even without
the night vision goggles on.  Binoculars fisted in the
stranger’s left hand. 

He recovered quickly and jerked his head to
the large cooling unit in the center of the roof.  Wendell
hefted his toolbox with his right hand.  “Late work
order.  A.C.’s on the fritz.  Don’t tell me you’re with
that other guy’s place.  Pete told the bastard I’d get over
here no matter how long it took.”

The man smiled.  Large white teeth
gleamed in the pale light cast by surrounding higher
buildings.  He took two steps closer.  “That bastard
would be me, sir.  I own this building and I’m not aware of
any issues with the air conditioning.  What was your name
again?”

“Doyle.  Milt Doyle,” Wendell
said.  Getting caught was one thing, but by the owner of the
building?  Unease prickled along his nerve endings, whispered
that something didn’t quite add up.  The man wore a jogging
suit, hardly corporate attire.  And the binoculars. 
Wendell eased his toolbox to the rooftop and knelt down.  “Got
the work order in here if you don’t believe me.”

“No, no.  I trust you, Milt.  The
building manager usually is fastidious about reporting any problems
to me.  That he neglected to do so this time…”

Wendell watched the surreptitious movements
of his foe.  The side-stepping, the nervous glances to the lip
on the building.  He’d seen those actions before.  Hell,
he’d
made
those movements before. 

In a flash, Wendell palmed the hand canon in
his tool box.  A bright flash of light, a soft pop, jogging
suit crumpled to the ground.  Blood droplets sprayed from open
lips and speckled the man’s face, the pristine concrete around his
body. 

Wendell didn’t wait for the death
rattle.  He made haste to the body and stepped over it. 
Under the lip, out of his direct line of sight lay the high-powered
rifle.  Across the way, Lyle Henderson practiced his sermon in
front of his reflection in the windows, oblivious to the danger
that simply waited for that perfect shot.

“Damn you,” Wendell cursed.

He stared into the glassy, sightless eyes of
jogging suit.  Clean shaven.  Clean cut.  Didn’t
look out of place in an upscale office building.  Maybe he was
the new VP of marketing, coming back to the office to peruse a file
or two after a rousing game of racquetball at the country club.

He really should call Johnny.  He
really
should.  But it would pose more questions than
Wendell could answer.  No, the better solution would be to let
the real building supervisor discover this crime scene.  Let
OSI and the feds come do their thing, gather their evidence, draw
their own conclusions.

Wendell really didn’t doubt what those would
be, either.  Clearly, this assassin had come back to do
another job, one closely related to the Sanderfield thing several
days ago.

Yes, it was better this way.  Let law
enforcement search for the one who killed the killer.

“They’ll never find me,” Wendell said. 
“You can’t catch a ghost.”

Just like after every other huge fight
Johnny and I had over the time we’d known each other, this one was
no different.  He’d gone back to work for the afternoon, but
came home early.  With sterling roses and an enormous box of
chocolates.  Danny took the hint (more of a glare really) and
retreated to parts unseen in the house, and Johnny decided that it
was time for us to make amends.

“I don’t like it when we fight.  I’m
sorry I threatened to leave, Helen.”

“I unpacked your stuff and put it away.”

“Maya called,” he dug into the box of
chocolates and found one filled with gooey caramel and popped it
into my mouth.  His lips brushed mine lightly.  “She said
that Billy got the mitochondrial results on all three
samples.  You neglected to tell me you submitted an envelope
flap.”

I swallowed the lump of sugar and kept my
eyes averted.  “We never got around that that little
detail.  I guess I figured we needed a quick answer about
Melissa Sherman’s paternity, and Dad’s mitochondrial DNA won’t be
the same as hers.  It’s passed from mother to child
exclusively, so just like I don’t carry Aidan’s, Melissa wouldn’t
carry Dad’s.”

“Maya explained it to me.”  He opted
for something with peanut butter next.  I dutifully
chewed.  “She said that whatever evidence the envelope came
from, it was a definitive match to Melissa Sherman’s.  I think
we both know what that means.”

I sighed.  “She’s Daddy’s real
daughter.”

“Well, she’s definitely Marie’s biological
child, and we have the link we need to Lyle Eriksson.  It
explains why so many people were determined to protect her, don’t
you think?”

“One would suppose as much.  What I
don’t understand was why they kept her from Dad, Johnny.  Why
not let him keep and bond with his real child?  Why offer a
substitute at all?”

A voice floated through the screened patio
doors.  “I think I can provide the answer to that,
Sprout.”

Johnny leapt off the sofa.  “Dammit,
Wendell!” he growled.  “What the hell are you doing lurking
around in our yard?”

He appeared out of the shadows. 

I frowned.  “What on earth are you
wearing?  What happened to the priestly garb, Daddy? 
What have you done?”

“A little reconnaissance.  Nothing to
worry about, Sprout.  I simply wanted to make sure that all
was well out at Dunhaven tonight.  When you said that Lowe was
refusing to see Henderson, I got curious.”

“So you posed as plant maintenance?” Johnny
asked.

“More of an exterior groundskeeper,” Dad
grinned.  “Henderson didn’t show up.  I thought about
heading over to Hennessey Island, but I figured the place was
probably still crawling with investigators after that hit and run
business over there last night.  Anyway, I just wanted to make
sure everything was all right over here.  Where’s Danny, by
the by?”

“Upstairs.  Giving my wife and me a
little well-earned privacy.”

“Ah,” Dad nodded.  “Well then, I guess
I’ll head back to Downey for the night.  Unless of course
you’d like to hear my answer about why Lyle and Marie might want to
keep me away from the one I actually spawned.”

I struggled off the sofa.  “I’m
interested in hearing that story.  Aren’t you, Johnny?”

He scoffed under his breath.

“What was that, old man?” Dad arched his
brow.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?  If the first
plan to control you with Helen didn’t work, they could always
dangle the truth in front of you – that she wasn’t really your
child, and that they’d had the real one all along.”

“Not a half bad theory, Johnny, but it
occurred to me, as I’m sure it would Sprout if she thought about
everything she knows. Yet ultimately, you’re probably wrong. 
Did Helen ever share the story I told her about how I learned Marie
was pregnant?”

Johnny’s eyes widened.  “She got
fat.”

“Yes, not just pregnancy plump like Helen
here, but full on morbidly obese.  The woman suddenly morphed
into a lard ass and expected me to believe that nothing was wrong
with her.”

“Oh my God,” I said.  “She never wanted
you to know she was pregnant, did she?”

“Can you think of a reason why a woman
wouldn’t want her husband to know she was pregnant, Sprout?” Dad
asked.

“Only one,” Johnny said.  “She had an
affair.  The child wasn’t yours.”

“It’s a distinct possibility.  After
our conversation yesterday wherein you convinced me to submit a DNA
sample for comparison to Melissa Sherman, it occurred to me that I
literally dragged Marie kicking and screaming to my own personal
physician.”

“And he told you Marie was pregnant,” I
said.

“That is correct.  You know how I
reacted.”

“God,” Johnny said.  “She never
intended to come back to you, did she?”

“I doubt it,” Wendell said.  “She’d
have had that child and either raised it with her parents or simply
turned it over to Lyle and Suzy.  But when I learned the
truth, she had to know that I’d change my mind.”

“And you did.  You wanted your
baby.”

“So they purchased you,” Daddy said. 
“You see, Sprout, while I don’t doubt that Lyle and Melissa are
part
of this conspiracy, I still doubt that they are the
masterminds in all of it.  Lyle is protecting what’s his.”

“Melissa Sherman.”

“And how she got involved with a creep like
Eugene Sherman is probably another story entirely, but make no
mistake.  They are in it for the money.  Unlike Marie’s
ambitious steal-from-the-banks scheme, this one is far more
lucrative, and provided a good number of people with what they
really wanted.  Sexual slaves, cheap labor.  You name
it.  But it made Lyle very rich.”

“It kept Sherman up to his eyeballs in young
girls, which we already know was his kink,” Johnny said.

“And Melissa?  Who knows what she
wanted.  Perhaps it was simply greed, like her mother’s. 
Or perhaps it was the only thing she knew how to do well. 
Immaterial.  What matters is that there was a first sale, and
I believe for these people, it was you, Helen.  These players
gravitated toward one another through necessity.  They got
filthy rich in the process.”

“The irony is that they could’ve ransomed
Helen back to her biological parents for a fortune, probably more
than they made selling her to Lyle.”

“No, Johnny.  The intent wasn’t to sell
Helen.  It was to shut me up, give them another layer of
leverage, keep me doing Marie’s bidding with the robberies.  I
don’t doubt that they realized how easy it was, snatching a
newborn, placing her far away.  No questions were ever asked
on our end, and I doubt they would be now either, given the
popularity of alternative birthing options women employ these
days.  It’s harder to snatch babies from hospitals.  So
alternative sources were sought.”

I saw it click in Johnny’s brain. 
“Enter Gill Vorre.”

“Who?” Daddy asked.

“That’s Eugene Sherman’s real name.  He
was a chef for the State Department in Saudi Arabia until he was
fired in the early 1970s.  He didn’t come back to the US until
the mid-nineties.  And then it was after he’d stolen the real
Eugene Sherman’s identity,” I explained

“Instant political clout,” Johnny
said.  “Perhaps that was what he offered the operation.”

“No, Sanderfield offered more political
power and clout than Sherman.  He managed to get OSI closed
and was running for the highest office in the state, Johnny,” I
reminded him.  “Sherman offered sophistication and
legitimacy.  A former attaché who served in foreign nations on
behalf of our government.  Who would ever question his
impeccable pedigree?”

Dad tapped the tips of his fingers
together.  “They are all pieces, Helen, but expendable ones
nonetheless.  None of these fits the profile of the man behind
the scenes, the one desperate enough to set the operation up, to
keep the ball rolling for all these years, the one with the most to
lose if it’s ever exposed.”

“He has a profile now?” Johnny asked.

I followed Dad’s train of thought. 
“You’re right.  He’s the one who needed this thing from the
very beginning.  There’s always been a sense of desperation
I’ve felt.  Lyle is charismatic and personable enough to
inspire loyalty from men like Gutierrez and Gillette. 
Sanderfield called him father, even though he was an adult when he
married Sanderfield’s mother.”

“Another calculated move,” Johnny’s fist
plowed into the palm of his left hand.

“But the mastermind’s desperation dwarfed
all other motives.  He’d kill to cover up his crimes because
he stands to lose more than the rest of them combined.  I’d
wager that very few people other than Lyle know his identity
even.  He’s kept himself that well insulated from all of it,”
I postulated.

“What is his desire, Sprout?”

“Money,” I said.  “It has to be the
money.  What else could it be?  Sex?  Power?  I
don’t get the sense that any of those things matter to him. 
If they did, he could simply move his base of operations somewhere
friendly to this kind of servitude.  Somewhere that devalues
women out of hand anyway.”

“You’re saying that something keeps this guy
right here in Darkwater Bay,” Johnny said. 

“Yes. 
Yes
!”  I looked at
my father.  “Dad, what’s your gut on this one?  Is he
really a big fish in this small pond?”

“It makes more sense than anything else,
Sprout.  Why scramble to cover things up here if he could
simply move his base of operations somewhere else?  He’s tied
to this place for some reason.  If we can figure out why, it
might point to who this person is.”

“Maybe he can’t leave.”

“What do you mean, Johnny?” Dad asked.

“I mean, what if he’s already incarcerated
in a manner of speaking?”

“No.  Absolutely not.  It isn’t
Jerry Lowe, Johnny,” I argued.  “He
thinks
he knows who
it is, and while he might be the ultimate big fish in a small pond,
Jerry was too wrapped up in his own sick fantasies to give a damn
about bringing in more targets that likely didn’t fit his ideal
girl’s image anyway.  Remember what I told you about his
type?  Petite, blonde, blue eyed.  Analynn Villanueva was
Filipina.”