Daddy's Little Killer (44 page)

"As you said
what
?" Crevan snarled
succinctly.

He actually winked at Crevan. "Don't doubt
that she'll figure it out, detective. Some secrets aren't meant to
remain buried."

Chapter 41

When I rejoined the men in the observation
room, Hardy and Weber looked utterly shaken.  Don pulled me
aside.

"Helen, do you think he's the one?"

"He's a cold blooded murderer, a serial
killer and rapist."

"I meant about the other thing, with George
and me."

"So far, we haven't uncovered any evidence,
Chief Weber, but if it happens to come out in the trial, I'm afraid
there's nothing I can do to control the fallout.  Perhaps you
and Commissioner Hardy should consider coming forward with whatever
these circumstances are."

"We would be ruined, personally and
professionally, Helen."

"Sometimes we have to take our punishments
no matter how much we'd rather avoid them."  Prophetic words,
I feared.  Agent Seleeby wasn't likely to let go of his
suspicion of me.  In more than one way, it was my fault. 
After all, I was the one who reminded him of my criminal
birthright. 

When it was all said and done, the charges
filed, the arraignment held and bail denied, one less monster was
on the street, even though he wouldn't confess.  Lowe started
playing the crazy card the second he was booked.  And why
not?  The apple, as they say, never falls far from the
tree.  I should know.

Thus concluded my tenure as a detective with
Darkwater Bay Police Department.

Theresa the bubbly realtor tersely informed
me that since the house I leased with the option to buy was
destroyed, that the seller would be opting to enforce the
sale.  Stuck with property without a dwelling, I debated
whether to let it sit vacant or to rebuild.  Considering that
the property was overpriced to begin with, and the land being the
major asset would be mine free and clear, the insurance money would
cover the cost of a much grander home.

That didn't answer the queasy questions that
roiled like time lapse clouds in my belly.

Did I want to retire in Darkwater Bay? 
Would I once again succumb to temptation to mete out my version of
justice, this time to Danny Datello?  How would anything less
than nomadic life keep Seleeby off kilter in his quest to bring me
to justice?

My head throbbed with indecision. 

The knock at the seedy motel room door
snapped me out of ten days of indecision.  Darkwater Bay's gun
ownership laws were far less strict than those in D.C.  I
pulled my weapon and approached the door warily.

"Who is it?"

"Johnny Orion, Tony Briscoe and Crevan
Conall."

My headache multiplied by a factor of
ten.  I stuck the gun in the back of my jeans and opened the
door.  "What do you want?"

Orion sported mirrored sunglasses.  The
clouds had actually parted for once.  He grinned at me. 
"Can we come in?"

"No."

"That's not very sociable of you, Doc. 
We're here with good news."

Crevan Conall's eyes drifted past me into
the run-down digs I now called home, at least until my indecisive
paralysis lifted.  His nose wrinkled.  "Maybe she doesn't
have room for us inside, Johnny."

His snobbery irritated me.  I stepped
aside and waved them through the doorway.  "What's this good
news, Orion?"

The trash bin in the room was overflowing
with wine bottles.  All I'd done to spruce up the place and
make it fit for temporary occupation was buy linens from the local
Bed Bath and Beyond. 

"Lowe's lawyer is pushing for a speedy
trial," he said.  "Zack asked us if you'd be available to
testify in a few months."

"I'll call him with my email address so he
can contact me with a specific date when he has it.  That's
probably the easiest way to reach me.  Is that all?"

Briscoe cleared his throat.  "We
arrested Varden and Kelly.  They wouldn't admit that Chief
Lowe was the guy who hired them. They did have that computer you
said got ripped off from your room at the Montcliff, so we got 'em
on theft, breaking and entering, so forth."

No surprise there.  Yet I still
couldn't fathom anyone from the Marcos family – Datello included –
who would use such inept, heavy handed thugs.  The mob had
achieved a new degree of sophistication with more subtle tactics
brought by a younger generation of criminals. Varden and Kelly
would never finger Lowe. Breaking and entering? Theft? Hardly
crimes that would make men like those two sweat.

"Congratulations.  Anything else?"

"The cabin up on Scabbard Mountain put the
final nail in Lowe's coffin," Conall said.  "That's where he
kept his other trophies."

Heads and hands no doubt.  "I see."

Conall and Briscoe shuffled their
feet. 

"We uh … well, we figured you'd want to know
that the whole thing is wrapped up, Eriksson," Briscoe said. 
"If you're plannin' on hangin' around here for awhile, me 'n Puppy
here wondered if you might be interested in some more work."

"I don't –"

"Think about it," Conall interrupted – his
smile echoing that odd familiarity I sensed when I first met him,
like he knew me somehow.  "We don't expect an answer today,
Dr. Eriksson.  Our lieutenant said we could float the idea to
you, and that if you're interested, you can call her.  Not
right away of course, but whenever you decide what you want to
do."

They slipped out the door.

"Your friends are going."

"We came separately," Orion said.  "How
are you, Helen?  I was sort of surprised when you didn't show
up at Lowe's evidentiary hearing."

"I'm assuming everything held up, or
Carpenter wouldn't be thinking his trial date is only a few months
away."

Johnny folded himself into one of two chairs
at the table.  He crossed his ankles and stacked his hands
behind his neck.  "Lowe will no doubt angle for an insanity
defense, as I'm sure you realized.  That's a problem for the
prosecution."

"Why?" I snorted.  "Because juries want
to believe that someone must be insane to do the things he
did?  That can be easily disproven by reminding jurors that
Lowe had the mental capacity to not only hold down a job, but
manipulate his way into administration of their police
department.  An insane man wouldn't be that functional in the
real world."

"I think Zack would like our resident expert
on this case to tell the jury exactly that."

"Who is it?  Someone I might've heard
of?" 

"You, Doc.  We're counting on you to
convince the jury that Lowe isn't crazy."

"You'll need an expert, a forensic
psychiatrist for that, I'm afraid."

"Not with your resume."

I shrugged.  "I'll do whatever I can,
but I hope this ADA listens if I tell him he needs a medical expert
instead of a clinical psychologist."

"I didn't come here to discuss
business."

My arms tightened around my waist. 
"Oh?"

"How are you?  And
don't give me that
I'm fine
bullshit.  You're not fine.  It's
finally starting to catch up to you, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Sure you do, but if this is how you want to
play it, fine with me."

"Why are you really here?"  I perched
on the edge of the bed.  "I don't believe it's because you're
worried about me, Orion.  You want something.  Just like
Briscoe and his partner did."

Orion spun my laptop around and woke the
screen.  He whistled softly.  "Pretty impressive house
plans.  You're going to rebuild?"

"I'll never get my money out of the property
if I don't."

"Let me see if I've got this straight. 
You won't agree to work here.  You will consider rebuilding a
gorgeous home to replace the shoddy one you got suckered into
buying, but you won't commit to actually living in it. 
Instead, you've spent a week and a half holed up in probably the
filthiest motel in Darkwater proper guzzling wine by the
bottle."

"You need to leave."

"I'm not leaving you, Helen."  He rose
and began stalking through the small space.  "You might have
commitment issues, but I do not.  You'll stay here. 
You'll do what you really came to do."

He couldn't know.  I almost swallowed
my tongue.  Did he learn something else while I was hiding out
licking my wounds?

"In the meantime, it might be wise not to
dismiss the opportunity Tony and Crevan offered you.  What
better way to catch Datello than through a legitimate police
investigation?  I don't want to spend sleepless nights
worrying that you're trying to break into his office again."

"I can take care of myself."

Johnny stilled and stared at me.  "Like
the last time?  That didn't turn out so well."

The door was ten feet away.  Before
Orion could protest, I opened it and waved him through it. 
"You're going.  Now."

"Not before I get what I came here for."

My eyebrow arched.  "More dire
warnings?  More attempts to manipulate me into doing what you
want instead of what's best for me?  Datello's no fool,
Johnny.  If I stay here, he'll be watching every move I
make.  It would be suicide –"

He cut off whatever excuses I planned to fob
by jerking me against his chest.  Lips mere millimeters from
mine, he murmured, "I came here because the way I see it, the least
you owe me is a kiss."

"Oh really?  I already told you, you
missed your –"

Johnny's nose brushed mine a moment before
his lips closed the brief distance.  Sparks crackled along my
nerves at the light touch of his mouth to mine.  My stomach
dropped through the floor before I knew what was happening.

And then he stepped away.

"Stay, Helen.  I think there's more
here for you than you could possibly imagine."

Dazed, I leaned against the open door and
stared up at him.  "Where are you going?"

Orion popped the
sunglasses back on and smirked.  "Some of us have, jobs,
sweetheart.  If you want to talk, you know where to find me."
 He kissed my forehead.  "Make the right choice this
time."

I wasn't sure what he
meant, but I knew what his words meant to me.  The right
choice didn't involve another murder.  It meant making a
concerted effort to do this the right way, to exact my sense of
justice along a parallel path with the legal system.  Most of
all, it meant forsaking the wisdom of my father, a part of myself
so ingrained into the fabric that makes me Helen, I'm not sure I
can do it. 

There was something about
this city too, something niggling at the nape of my neck that I
couldn't quite identify.  Conall's odd stares ... Briscoe's
encyclopedic knowledge of way more than a simple police detective
... and of course, Datello wasn't going anywhere, not unless
someone did the right thing and sent him to prison.  My gut
warned me that this battle of wits with Lowe was far from
over.  And someone was still blackmailing Hardy and
Weber.  Did I care enough to invest in more than...

The floor plan on my
computer screen drew my attention.  Yeah, that was the real
question. Did I care to invest in more than property?  My
lower lip endured a bit more abuse.  The newest incarnation of
cell phone lay close by.  Fingers tiptoed across the table and
glanced over the numbers on the touch screen.  One ring.
 Two rings.

"Hello?"

"Maya, it's Helen.
 How would you like to help me pick out the floor plan for the
house I have to build?"

Her soft laugh gave me
hope, instilled belief that I could do this.  I could become
more than the sum of my parts, more than Wendell's progeny, more
than the ex-wife of a money launderer, more than a former profiler
for the FBI.  I could be Helen, maybe for the first time in my
life.  In a few short minutes, I realized that I don't know
who I am, but I'd really like to find out.

"Come on over, kiddo," she
said.

Time, I have. 
Where is this path going to take me?  I don't know
for sure, but that crawling sensation down my spine tells me that
something else is still lurking out here, something dark and
lethal. If I'd been paying attention, perhaps I would've noticed
the eyes watching me since my arrival in Darkwater Bay. I might've
believed Jerry Lowe when he warned me, this is only the beginning.
Only my ignorance shrouded the depths of what was truly hidden in
Darkwater Bay.