Always Watching (25 page)

I hadn’t considered that.  “Perhaps she
meant the funeral and everything that Celeste will have to deal
with in the aftermath of Danny’s death.  It isn’t like she’s
got a ton of emotional support from her family.  It sounds
like they haven’t quite forgiven her for standing by her man.”

“
Maybe,” Johnny
muttered.  “Then again, I’m not about to trust anybody that
Datello thought fit to run his business while he pondered life in
prison.”

“
I’m not making much
headway searching Darkwater Exchange, Helen,” Crevan
said.

“
What is Darkwater
Exchange?”

“
Darkwater Bay’s homegrown
version of a services and goods trading community,” Crevan
said.  “Think Craigslist, only without the national
network.  We figured something as sensitive as human
trafficking might be buried in something that isn’t getting
national attention.  Problem is, I’m having a bit of trouble
figuring out what exactly we should be looking for.  I doubt
they’re going to be overt.”

“
A huge part of where
these women and children land is in prostitution and child
pornography,” I said.  “We’re not going to find the child
pornographers without attracting attention from the feds that we
really don’t want at this stage.”

“
So …
prostitution?”

“
Remember what we talked
about earlier, Crevan.  Massage with a plus.  Escorts,
subtler than the real sleazy stuff we might see.  Since
Analynn Villanueva was from the Philippines, and statistically, we
know that more women and children are stolen or tricked into being
trafficked, let’s focus on that demographic in the
search.”

“
Great,” he
muttered.  “Asian massage, escorts, et. cetera.”

“
Exactly.”

“
And if I find such local
services?” he asked.

“
We’ll need to meet with
them,” Johnny said.  “They’re gonna have red flags flying all
over the place if we do this as cops.”

“
You’re thinking more of a
vice tactic?”

Johnny nodded at me.  “Darkwater’s red
light district is located down on Mercer Boulevard.”

I remembered.  When Ned Williams and I
interviewed a suspect in Journey Ireland’s assault at
Christmastime, his alibi actually came from a dominatrix who
operated from Mercer Boulevard.  “Does OSI have a vice team
working that area?”

“
No,” Johnny said. 
“The worst of it runs right through Central Division.  I’ll
give Charlie Haverston a call and see if they’ve got anyone down
there undercover.  My guess is that they’ve been too busy with
major issues over the past eight months to get around to putting
officers on Mercer to deal with prostitution.”

“
So you’re saying that
we’re basically starting a vice operation from scratch.”  I
cursed softly under my breath.  “Everything in this city is
complicated a hundred times more than it should be after 15 years
of Jerry Lowe looking the other way.  I take it we don’t even
have a small network of confidential informants?”

“
Maybe a few,” Crevan
said.  “Tony probably knows who to talk to down there. 
People that would be amenable to sharing information with the
police.”

“
It begs the question to
his amenability to speaking to you,” I said.  “Sorry, Crevan,
but it’s been two months and he’s still acting like a 12 year
old.”

“
I’ll take care of it,”
Johnny said.  “He knows better than to pull that crap with
me.”

“
We’re still doing battle
with Sherman’s attorney,” Zack said.  “That’s why I’m here,
Helen.  He’s insisting on an arraignment hearing first thing
Monday morning, since our judges have denied his request for a
special arraignment hearing this weekend.  I’m not sure how he
found out that Agent Preston allegedly got Datello to confess to
orchestrating a kidnapping from behind bars, that he acted alone
and that Mrs. Sherman was merely a rube taken in this nefarious
plot, but he knows.”

“
The obvious answer is
that Sherman was in on the plot with Preston to begin with,” I
said.  “He knew full well what he planned to squeeze out of
Danny.”

“
Now that Preston is dead,
it’s a bit more complicated than his word against Officer
Becker’s.  Now it’s the dying declaration.  I’m afraid
that it may become admissible at the arraignment hearing unless we
have direct testimony that contradicts her innocence in this
plot.”

“
She told Devlin that her
baby was stillborn, buried next to her husband.  He viewed it
as exigent circumstances when the nanny showed up with a
newborn.”

“
That doesn’t contradict
Preston’s story, this confession Datello made that he led Melissa
Sherman to believe that it was a legal adoption.  We could go
with the angle of Payette claiming that the Shermans own her, but
as Helen already pointed out, Florence would be a difficult witness
on her best day.”

“
Dammit,” I
muttered.  “She’s going to weasel out of these
charges.”

“
I have some serious
concerns, Helen,” Carpenter confirmed my worst fear.

“
Have you talked to the
nanny that was caring for the baby in Montgomery?” Johnny
asked.

“
She’s unfortunately,
disappeared.  I’m not sure anyone even got her name,” Zack
gave Crevan a pointed stare.

“
Sarah Holmes.  I got
a local address for her, but she claimed to work out of some day
nanny agency in Montgomery.  She was completely shocked that
we showed up and took the child.  Apparently it was her first
day on the job.”

“
Get the name of that
agency for me,” Johnny said.  “I’ll confirm the story. 
It seems to fit with what Payette told Helen and Beatrice. 
Florence claimed that she was told she would be able to care for
this baby herself.  When we picked her up, that plan fell
through, so Melissa Sherman would’ve needed a nanny in a
hurry.”

“
Yes,” I muttered,
“because God forbid a parent actually cares for her own
child.  What else does she have to do?  Stay at home
socialite?”

Johnny chuckled.  I suppose he
suspected that a little bit of jealousy was rearing its ugly head
with me, something I didn’t show previously when he showed up at
the Christmas party with the petite, buxom beauty from his security
business.

“
Claws in, darling,” he
murmured.  “Are you going to keep digging for background
information on Gill Vorre?”

“
I’m not sure what I’ll
find, considering that it appears he re-entered the U.S. under an
assumed name.  I’d like to talk to Dev and make sure he knows
that we need Melissa’s identity prior to her marriage to Vorre five
years ago.  Didn’t someone say she’s only 29 years
old?”

Crevan piped up.  “According to her
driver’s license, that’s her current age, although if you ask me,
she’s been nipped and tucked enough to suspect that she’s a bit
older than late twenties.”

I shuddered.  “What on earth would a 29
year old woman want with a man who’s nearly 90 years old? 
It’s just beyond comprehension.  The guy was old enough to be
her grandfather.  Do we even know if this stillbirth story was
true?”

“
We should look into it,”
Zack said.  “It could establish a pattern of dishonesty if she
lied to the police about one dead child.”

“
Or we could discover that
her first attempt at having a baby was another abducted
child.  If there is a baby, maybe an exhumation would be in
order to determine if the child’s DNA matches hers,” I said. 
“Maya’s got Preston pushed to the front of the line right now, but
considering that we’re under such time constraints on this one,
she’d be glad to re-prioritize again.  I think she could get
mitochondrial DNA faster than the nuclear DNA test is
completed.”

“
It’ll be cause for
another battle with her attorney,” Zack said.  “He’s not going
to cooperate with anything that might incriminate his
client.”

“
If he cooperates, it
might be a sign that this stillborn story is true, which in turn
could give more credence to Preston’s claim that Datello intended
to give her legal custody of the baby,” Johnny said.

“
That assumes that there
was a stillborn child,” Crevan reminded him.  “Which I’m not
sure is true at all.  She seemed more than a little irritated
when the nanny came in with a fussy child.”

“
I understand why you
arrested this woman on the spot, guys, but really, it would’ve been
far better if we had built a more compelling case with stronger
evidence before she was taken into custody.  As it stands,
we’ll be lucky if this doesn’t end in a civil suit by noon
Monday.  We’ve got holes all over the place, more questions
than answers, nothing that explains how this baby got from Florence
Payette to Montgomery –”

“
Wait a minute,” I
interrupted Zack.  “That’s it.  Florence Payette can
identify the person she gave that baby to.  We need to get her
looking at photos of –”

“
Of whom, my dear?” Johnny
said.

“
A sketch artist
then.  There’s got to be some way to find out, or at least get
a description of the person who delivered the baby to Melissa
Sherman.”

“
Not to Sherman,” Johnny
said.  “To the nanny.  Remember.  Sherman was at
that fundraiser thing the night the baby was kidnapped.”

“
Johnny, that nanny was
very clear.  The day we showed up to question Sherman was the
first day she cared for the baby,” Crevan said.

The hairs on the back of my neck tightened
with the beginning of a hunch.  “So, if Sherman was at that
party with you until what time?”

“
Eleven,” Johnny
said.  “I dropped her off at the house at eleven, saw her
inside and went back to the governor’s mansion.  I wasn’t
inside for more than two minutes.  She asked me if I wanted a
nightcap.  I politely declined, and left.”

“
That fits with what
Gillette told Devlin,” I said.

“
He was watching her house
that night?” 

I’m not sure what offended Johnny more –
that there was a single detail I’d left out of the investigation
before he was part of it, or that I seemed to need independent
corroboration that he was telling the truth.  Probably the
latter.  Perversely, I didn’t care so much that he knew I
dared doubt him.

“
We had a statement from
Payette that the Sherman’s owned her,” I said.  “I felt it was
prudent to put her under surveillance.”

“
Well if Gillette was
there watching all night, why didn’t he see someone show up with a
baby?”

“
He got to the house
around ten,” I said.  “It’s what, a three and a half hour
drive from Darkwater to Montgomery?”

“
Closer to four, if one
isn’t speeding like a maniac,” Johnny huffed.

“
So the baby was abducted
from the hospital between three and four PM.  We suspect the
time was closer to three-thirty, because that was when the nurse
returned from her lunch break and found no one in the nursery with
the babies.  A few minutes later, Payette rushed in,
breathless, and claimed that she had to take a bathroom
break.  The hospital called the Code Pink at four when
Celeste’s nurse returned to take Sofia to her mother.”

“
So we’re looking at a
window of seven to eight o’clock for the trip from Darkwater to
Montgomery,” Crevan said.  “Which assumes that whoever took
the baby went directly from the hospital to Montgomery.”

“
It’s conceivable that
whoever delivered the child was already at the house, waiting for
Mrs. Sherman before Gillette began surveillance,” I
said.

“
Where you goin’ with
this, Doc?”

“
Who else do we know for
certain was part of this scheme?”

“
For certain?” Zack
echoed.  “A lot of this is far from certain,
Helen.”

Johnny, bless his heart, knew exactly which
dots I connected.  “That would be the man who conveniently got
Sherman off the hook for kidnapping before he died.”

Crevan snapped his fingers.  “Which
could explain why he didn’t show up to investigate a child
abduction until after the fact.  If he travelled from
Darkwater Bay to Montgomery, had to wait for Sherman to get back
from her social function before driving back here, it sure as hell
explains why Chris wasn’t keeping him off our tails until we were
already closing the case.”

“
It’s a stretch,” I
said.  “But I think if we can get Florence Payette to work
with a sketch artist and the rendering looks anything like Alfred
Preston, we’ll have more than enough to make sure the kidnapping
charge sticks.  If nothing else, it’ll make Preston’s dying
declaration very suspect.”

“
What’s to prevent this
guy from arguing that Payette isn’t competent to describe someone?”
Zack asked.  “He’s already made some pretty disparaging
comments about her.”

“
She’s worked at Saint
Mary’s Hospital for a very long time.  While she may not be
the coolest witness in the world,” I said, “she was certainly
competent enough on the job to be recognized as employee of the
month and quarter more than one time.  I think it’s our best
shot.”

Zack nodded.  “Let’s do it.”