Cloaked in Blood

My mind was racing before Johnny and I got home from the Sanderfield crime scene.  In all the excitement, I hadn’t had a moment to call Dad back.  Was he worried?  Or was Johnny right?  Could he have been present at the time Sanderfield was murdered?  Time of death was etched in stone, thanks to the multitude of calls at the time of the shooting.

Fifteen minutes before I called Dad.

In Sweden.

The image of the man at the crime scene haunted me.  His face was covered with bandages.  Something was familiar about his gait.  I recognized it eventually.  No, it wasn’t my father. 

It was far worse than that, but impossible at the same time.  The shock of black hair that was styled in a way I couldn’t forget, the sure long stride, even though it was blocked by a throng of spectators.

Rick Hamilton was dead.  I killed him.  I saw him die.  I saw his body hours after I shot him in the head.  I watched his coffin sink into the ground. 

But that gait.  That hair.

I shuddered.

Helen.

My eyes darted left.  We were sitting in the garage.

Are you all right?

Mmm.

Johnny’s forehead wrinkled.  Honey, I shouldn’t have let you talk me into letting you come out to Hennessey Island with me.  Are you –

I’m fine, I said.  Just confused.  Sanderfield is really dead.

Well, Maya hasn’t officially made the identification, but yeah, based on witness accounts, it was him leaving the Island Hotel Resort and Casino this morning.  She’ll roll his prints –

I’m familiar with the procedure when a visual ID isn’t exactly possible, Johnny.  It sort of shoots the theory that he’s behind the human trafficking ring straight to hell though, doesn’t it?

Probably, he sighed heavily and dug the fingers of his right hand into his hair.  Then again, if he’s just another lower level player, a piece put into place to insure that the business doesn’t fall apart, who knows?

If he was a chip, why kill him?  If he was supposed to smooth things over in Darkwater Bay, return everything to the status quo before I showed up and Lowe got arrested, it makes no sense to assassinate him, Johnny.  I paused and picked at a speck of lint on my pants.  And how did his security detail not see anything after he was shot?  How is it that such a precise hit was made without so much as nicking one of half a dozen men surrounding him precisely for the purpose of protecting him from something exactly like what happened this morning?

Excellent questions.

You know the answer as well as I do.

Johnny chuffed a long, slow breath through his nose.  It was professional.

It was more than professional, Johnny.  This was a strike delivered with such precision, it was downright surgical.

His fist thumped the steering wheel of the Expedition.  Yeah, Chris said the same thing.

It struck him as military?

He said there are maybe five, six snipers in the world that he knows of who could hit a moving target like that with a single shot and not the men escorting him.

So… we think this is military?

Johnny laughed.  Hell, the whole thing was so frustrating, we could do little else but laugh.

It couldn’t have been, I finally spoke when the laughter died down.  "Just because it looks like one thing doesn’t mean there isn’t a killer out there who isn’t military capable of that kind of accuracy."

Could be former military.

Johnny…

You said he was in Sweden.

Yeah, I said.  And he was never a sharpshooter.

We’re never gonna find this guy, are we? he asked with a sort of calm dejection. 

No.

Helen, we can’t just give up.

I thought about the past couple of months, the abduction of Danny Datello’s daughter, his subsequent murder by Special Agent Alfred Preston, my abduction, the human trafficking ring and all roads that seemed to point to Terrell Sanderfield.  Now he was dead.  Was that the point?  Kill the players we might’ve linked to the crime and kill the case.

Honey –

I know, I said.  We’re out of leads.  We’re out of suspects.

Except for Melissa Sherman.

Yeah, I laughed.  She’s not talking.  And at this point, what kind of case does Zack really have against her anymore?  Anybody that might’ve testified against her is dead.

We’ve still got Lyle Henderson.

He’s eighty-some years old, Johnny.  Are people really going to believe that he’s this human trafficking mastermind, that he ordered the assassination of his own step-son to hide his crimes?

Sully Marcos killed his brother in law.

And I killed my ex-husband.  Yes, I know I killed him.  The memory is as fresh in my mind today as it was the day that it happened.  Still, those bandages…

I really wish you wouldn’t say that, Johnny said.

Why not?  How am I different than any of the monsters you chase, Johnny?  Why do I have the right to be free when –

Because it was suicide, he said.  Leave it alone.

I can’t, I said.  Johnny, I can’t live with this anymore.  I can’t help you chase monsters when I look in the mirror and that’s what I see looking back at me.  Someone who broke the law in the worst possible way.  How can you possibly believe that I’ll be a fit parent when…

"You aren’t a monster."

Well, I’m not a good person either.

Johnny opened the door and slid out of the SUV.  Come inside, Helen.  I’d like your take on what happens next.

He knew as well as I did that it was a dead end.  We had no leads, no idea who killed Sanderfield, no way of really linking the dead senator to the human trafficking case.  It was over.  All that was left was the prosecution of Melissa Sherman, and nobody really left to testify against her – except for Crevan, Dev and me.  Her shyster attorney Curtis Marcel would have a field day shooting holes in the iron clad case against her.  There was reasonable doubt all over the place – former FBI Agent Alfred Preston’s dying declaration, Destiny Gerard’s confession that Datello had offered his only child to Sherman in a legal adoption, no real or concrete evidence that Andy Gillette was working with Gerard and Sherman beyond my testimony.  The fact that I was rescued from my ordeal in less than mentally sound condition only helped the defense.  Hell, they could argue that I couldn’t know what was said or done because of delirium.

By the time I shuffled behind him into the kitchen, Johnny was already on the telephone.  Had he called someone, or did I simply miss the ringing in my distraction over today’s bad news?

No, she’s right here.

He held out the phone.

Who?

David, Johnny said quietly.

Hey, I said.

How are you hanging in there, dear one?  I wanted to talk to you at the crime scene.

It’s all right, David.  I understand what you’re facing.

I’m not so sure you do, Helen.  Listen, I’m being called back to D.C. on another matter for a few days.  I just wanted to let you know that even though I won’t be able to say goodbye in person, that we’re not giving up on this case.

What case? I snorted softly.  David, there’s nothing left now, and you know it.

Don’t be ridiculous.  We’ve still got the financial records from Sanderfield’s campaign.  Lyle Henderson is still a person of interest.  The case against Melissa Sherman –

Is weak, and we both know it.  You’re never going to get anywhere with Henderson.  It’s over David.  Sanderfield’s killer is long gone.

Since when do you give up this easily?  This investigation is far from finished, Helen.  Sanderfield might not have been the top dog, but I’m not convinced I thought he ever was.  Think about his position for a moment.  He might well have been a pawn, someone with government standing that could – and actually did in part – undo all the good OSI did in Darkwater Bay.

Why are you going back to Washington?

David laughed.  The Marcos case, Helen.  They’re making another run at dismissing the charges.  Seems Sully’s legal team wants to argue that Eddie Franchetta’s deal has enticed him to give false testimony.

I snorted.  And they think it’ll fly?

Eh, Sully thinks Franchetta might be the one who absconded with the missing money from his account with your late husband now.

I dragged my lip through my teeth.  He might be right, David.

That doesn’t erase the mountains of evidence provided by his nephew, David said.  And since that information was obtained legally in an investigation you performed, I’d say we’ve still got him dead to rights.  Don’t let this latest bit of wrangling worry you.

Are you telling me that Marcos doesn’t know that Danny turned on him?

We weren’t planning to introduce that evidence unless there was no other choice.  And why should we, when Franchetta substantiated everything Datello’s documentation provided?  Better a living witness, one who was responsible for pulling the trigger, than the files of a dead nephew simply bent on revenge for the murder of his father.

I hadn’t thought about it that way.  I wondered if David realized the bone he’d just thrown us with our case against Melissa Sherman.

Helen, are you still there?

If Sully had no idea that Danny was providing evidence against him sixteen years ago when David Ireland was murdered, or that we recovered proof that he was planning to turn on his family – my eyes met Johnny’s.

The threat to Celeste Datello didn’t come from Marcos’ family, Johnny said.

No, it didn’t.

What didn’t? David asked.

Never mind.  Go back to D.C.  Do your thing there.  Don’t worry about our case out here, David.  You just gave us what we needed to push forward with our own conundrum with Melissa Sherman.

I did?

Yes.  We’ll fill you in when you get back.

I hung up the phone and stared at Johnny.

This is good news, Helen.

Does OSI still have the voice mail recording Stefano supplied after Danny’s last motion for a continuance?

I’m sure it’s still with the case information on the abduction, Johnny said.

But do we have access to it?

We do now, Johnny grinned. 

My mind started grinding out possibilities.  This could be their fatal mistake, Johnny.  They wanted us to assume that the threat against Celeste and her child came from Uncle Sully.  He had no idea that the testimony against him from Franchetta was backed up by documentation from Danny.  But someone else assumed…