Always Watching (23 page)

“
So he was a wannabe
climber,” Crevan said.  “Is it possible that years of
professional frustration, seeing himself as an agent more deserving
of recognition and position made him vulnerable to being part of a
criminal enterprise like this?”

I nibbled the edge of another cracker,
experienced a moment of chagrin that Johnny’s home remedy for
nausea seemed to be doing the trick.  I eyed him
suspiciously.

“
What do you think,
sweetheart?”

“
Beyond my spidey sense
that you’re keeping something from me?”

He grinned.  “What do you think about
Crevan’s theory?”

“
Some of the things he
said to me yesterday after I shot him would support the notion that
our Agent Preston might’ve been a little grandiose, a little
self-important.  It’s possible.”

“
What makes you say
that?  Did you actually tell us what he said before the
paramedics arrived?” Devlin asked.

“
I think it was during
that couple of hours where Johnny really didn’t want to speak to
you, Dev,” Crevan chuckled.  His glee that Johnny’s jealousy
seemed to be utterly gone made me more wary of the behavior as
well.

“
I asked Preston if Sully
Marcos hired him to kill Datello, Devlin.  He basically
laughed at me and said I wasn’t nearly as smart as everyone thinks
I am.”

“
Ouch,” Dev
muttered.

“
And then she asked him if
he was working for Sherman’s crew,” Johnny said, “and he looked
like he couldn’t believe she knew anything about Sherman or his
alleged crew.”

“
Technically, we don’t
know there is one, and we don’t know that Sherman or his wife were
involved in the planning and execution of this slavery thing. 
It was a hunch, but it made him tip his hand,” I said.  “We
have one dead little girl who was abducted from the Philippines,
and a local infant who ended up being fobbed off as Sherman’s new
baby.  That’s hardly compelling evidence that there’s a human
trafficking operation.”

“
Except for the fact that
Florence Payette believes that Sherman owned her,” Johnny
said.  “Don’t forget that, Helen.  That’s the most
damning bit of evidence that we’ve got so far.”

“
When Devlin and I talked
to that hospital CEO –”

“
Fangman?” Devlin
interrupted.

“
Yeah, he told me that
there were two other infant abductions out of Saint Mary’s in the
past.  One of them happened during Lowe’s tenure on the police
force.  I’d like more information about those
cases.”

“
Why?  Do you think
these people have snatched local babies before?” Crevan
asked.  His eyes darted to the floor.

I frowned.  “It’s a distinct
possibility.  Especially the one that happened during Lowe’s
reign of terror.  Fangman said the first one happened decades
ago, before hospitals really conceived of the notion that babies
needed extra protection.”

“
I’ll see what we can dig
up on both of them,” Johnny said.  He picked up my left hand
and kissed the ring finger.  “You never know how long this has
been going on, right?”

Dev stuffed the rest of his pastry into his
mouth and mumbled, “Well, if we’ve got our orders for the day, I
guess I need to head to the airport.”

“
You’re flying to
Montgomery?” I asked.

“
Time is a luxury we don’t
have right now, sweetheart,” Johnny said.  “We can work from
here, but if Devlin’s gonna get through that house, he needs to get
moving.”

“
You’ll call if you find
anything right away, won’t you?”

He grinned at me.  “Yes, Helen. 
I’ll call with regular updates.  Right now, I need to
jet.  Johnny, you’ll take care of getting the manpower I need
once I get to Montgomery?”

“
I’m on it.”

He and Crevan walked Devlin to the
door.  I wondered what they were discussing out of
earshot.  No matter.  I trusted that Johnny would tell me
later, although some of his behavior this morning had raised my
suspicion to yellow alert. 

I slipped off the barstool and took the
ginger ale with me into the office.  Before long, I was up to
my eyeballs in data, mostly about the functions of attaché’s to
U.S. ambassadors.  My eyes started to blur over the vague
descriptions of functions.

“
To hell with this. 
There’s an easier way.”  I reached for the telephone on the
desk.

“
Any progress?” Crevan
interrupted.

“
Hmm?  Oh, not
really.  I decided that it might be easier to cut through the
bullshit and get to the bottom of this a hell of a lot faster than
Google.”  I paused.  “Where’s Johnny?”

“
He went out for a
bit.”

“
Yes, I can see
that.  Where did he go?”

“
He mentioned something
about meeting with Zack about Melissa Sherman and stopping by
Central Division to see if he can get the records on those
kidnapped babies from Saint Mary’s.”

“
I’m probably being
paranoid about it,” I said.  “Every time I hear Jerry Lowe’s
name, or find out that something horrible happened while he held
the police force under his thumb, I can’t pretend that he might’ve
been ignorant.”

“
Johnny told me something
the other day, Helen.”

“
What’s that?” I said
absently.  The phone call to my old friend Will Cutter at the
State Department weighed heavily on my mind.  Would I be able
to track him down on the weekend?  If I did, there was no
guarantee that he could give me the information on Eugene Sherman
until Monday anyway.

“
He said that your
birthday is the day after mine.”

“
Yeah, he mentioned that
awhile back.  I think he said you were born a minute before
midnight.”

“
And you were born ten
minutes after,” he said.

“
Has all this talk of
births got you feeling nostalgic?”

“
I don’t think nostalgic
is the right word.  Just can’t stop wondering what things
might’ve been like if my brother had lived, you know?  Dad
would’ve been a lot happier, I think.  At least he’d have one
son who wasn’t a complete disappointment.”

“
Aidan is an ass,” I
said.  One hand crept across the desk and gripped
Crevan’s.  “I can’t imagine a world without you, Crevan. 
If he can’t see what a wonderful human being you are, he doesn’t
deserve children at all.”

“
No grandkids.  Did I
tell you that was the last thing he said to me?”

“
I wasn’t aware you’d seen
him after we arrested Belle’s killer.”

“
It wasn’t planned,” he
said softly.  “I was at dinner one night, not long after we
closed that case.  Zack had just agreed to let Scott Madden
have treatment for post traumatic stress or whatever it was you
guys decided wrapped him up in his shell.  I… uh… I got a call
from someone…”

“
Alex?”

He nodded.  “He wanted to talk.  I
figured he needed to talk about it, how Underwood got off too easy,
how Madden probably wasn’t going to be punished at all for killing
Underwood.  I agreed to meet him for dinner.”

I couldn’t suppress the grin.  “Only
Alex didn’t care about any of that, did he?”

“
Not really.”

“
Well, I’m sure he cared a
little bit, since his brother was killed too,” I said, “but I knew
that he was interested in you, Crevan.  There’s nothing wrong
with that.”

“
Not according to
Dad.”

“
He’s wrong.”

Crevan whispered, “He said that it was a
mistake that his real son died, that I probably wasn’t even meant
to be.”

Again, I couldn’t help thinking that even
though the rest of the world saw my father as a monster, I was
damned lucky to have him.  Johnny was right.  It was time
for me to see the man who taught me what love between a parent and
child really looks like.

Chapter 19

Will Cutter was a fixture at the State
Department since the Clinton administration.  I was reluctant
to ever call in a marker with someone I helped, but the dead child
in the Bay County morgue, and the notion that there might be more
children in peril erased that hesitation.  Will Cutter owed me
a huge debt.  Today, the loan was due, with interest.

Eight years ago, Will’s granddaughter was
running with a crowd destined for trouble.  In the beginning,
it had been petty stuff.  Shoplifting.  Minor
vandalism.  But Will saw the proverbial writing on the wall in
some of that graffiti.  He asked me to scare the young girl
into making better friends.

Turned out that I was the only thing that
prevented Deanna from being with her gangster wannabe friends when
they beat a homeless man to death – for kicks.

I only hoped that Will remained as grateful
today as he was eight years ago.

He wasn’t in the office on the weekend, but
after I explained the investigation, that a former attaché’s very
young wife was apprehended with an abducted baby in her custody, it
answered my question about his gratitude. 

Cutter told me he’d go into the office and
look up Sherman’s record right away.  In the meantime, just to
cover all the bases, I had OSI send Eugene Sherman’s digital
thumbprint to Cutter. 

The phone rang.  I snatched it
mid-ring.  “Eriksson.”

“
Helen, it’s Will. 
Sorry it took so long to get back to you.  It seems you’ve
uncovered a rather baffling case of mistaken identity.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
Before I get into this,
I’ve got to know.  What made you send me the thumbprint for
this Sherman character?  Did you suspect that he wasn’t who he
claimed to be?”

“
No,” I said.  I
dropped into the chair at my desk and started rubbing one
temple.  “Eugene Sherman isn’t really Eugene Sherman? 
Shit.  Who the hell is he?”

“
Well, I ran the print
through the database we maintain here, which after how many years
of using prints to identify people, you can imagine is quite
extensive.  Anyone who has ever worked for anyone affiliated
with the United States Department of State is vetted and identified
by fingerprints.”

“
All right.  Are you
telling me that whoever the man was using the name Eugene Sherman
wasn’t an attaché?”

“
I can tell you he wasn’t
Eugene Sherman.  Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to share
more –”

“
Will, are you telling me
you know the identity of this man, but that you’re refusing to
share that information with me?”

“
I can’t say
anything.  The file is sealed, eyes only.”

“
You have clearance for
everything.”

“
I do, but that doesn’t
put me at liberty to share anything with anyone.  There would
be dire consequences for me if I simply ignored protocol every time
someone called.”

“
How is Deanna doing these
days?” I asked.  “Because as I recall, the night I stopped her
with those friends of hers, flashed my badge and demanded that she
come with me, it wasn’t exactly bureau protocol either.  If
she had stayed with those so-called friends, she’d be in prison
right now, not doing whatever it is she’s doing with her
life.”

“
I didn’t mean to imply
that you’re just anyone, Helen.  You know I’m grateful for
what you did.  Deanna is doing very well.  She graduated
from Georgetown last spring, passed the bar exam –”

“
The man using the
identity of Eugene Sherman is dead, Will.  He died of old age,
warm and safe in a comfortable bed.  This isn’t going to come
back to reflect poorly on anyone other than the man who apparently
stole someone else’s identity.  Believe me, the State
Department won’t have egg on its face.”

“
It’s not that,” Will
said.  “I shouldn’t even tell you this much.”

“
But you’re going
to.”

“
There was a bit of a
scandal surrounding his termination of employment.  I really
can’t say more than that.”

“
So the State Department
could be complicit in this.”

“
Helen, I never said
that.”

“
If I could tell you what
the scandal involved, without even knowing the true identity of
this man, would you be inclined to unseal that file and tell me
what you know about him?”

He sighed heavily.

“
He was fired because
allegations were made that he was engaged in slave
trade.”

I think Will dropped the phone.

“
The State Department
fired him, but he was living in a country that didn’t share the
same distaste for slavery that we do, so this man known as Sherman
camped out where his behavior was welcome.  You had no idea he
crept back into the U.S., did you Will?”

“
How can you possibly know
this?”

“
Because I’ve got a woman
who claims that Sherman owns her locked up in relation to the
missing infant who Sherman’s wife tried to pass off as her own
child.”

“
Jesus,” he
rasped.

“
If you won’t tell me his
identity, will you at least tell me what position he held?  I
don’t know, maybe there’s a way we can minimize the damage to the
State Department when the details of this investigation become
public.”