Chapter 14
Haverston swept right past David and Seleeby. Unlike me, his radar didn't register in the red zone at the sight of certain attitude. Federal agents exude it. I turned left and headed back to the restaurant, but I could feel them following and hear the steady click of polished patent leather shoes on the marble floor.
"Helen," David's fingers gripped my shoulder. "We need to talk."
I shrugged out of the light restraint. "No, I have nothing to say to either one of you."
"Then you'll listen," Seleeby chimed in. "Because we're not leaving until we've spoken our piece."
"Whatever it is, I simply don't care. My life in Washington is behind me, permanently. Is that clear enough for you, Agent Seleeby? Whatever you do, whatever information you think you've gathered, it simply doesn't matter to me."
"Helen, we think that Sully Marcos had Rick assassinated."
Well hallelujah and praise Jesus. There was that word again. Assassination. Technically, it implied the murder of an important person. I supposed that it signified the government's sense of loss of an important witness, one who I knew would never turn on his master.
"It's hardly rocket science. Marcos probably feared what you hoped would happen."
David's head jerked at Seleeby who, like the obedient dog, slouched off to the corner. David took a step closer to me. "Helen, you scared the life out of me. We had no idea what happened to you after you left the brownstone."
"Like I would stick around to witness them knock holes in the walls."
"They did no such thing. Mark told me that you accused us of sending another team to watch you. I wish we had. It would've saved me a lot of anxiety."
"Your comfort is the least of my concerns."
"You don't mean that. I know you don't." David's hand snaked out, fingers brushing lightly against my newly coiffed hair. "You look so different. It suits you."
I slapped his hand away. "Stop it, David. You can't woo me back into complacency."
"Can I woo you back home where you belong? This thing has blown over as fast as I thought it would. They had to look at you, Helen. Until we had concrete evidence of Sully Marcos' motive, there was no choice but to look at anyone who had a relationship with him. When you resigned, the way you did, it looked bad."
"I gave ten years of my life to the bureau. Monday was my reward. Thanks but no thanks. My life is moving in a different direction now."
"To Darkwater Bay? Helen."
"This is none of your business."
"Aren't you curious about why Marcos had Rick murdered?"
"I really don't care." My arms wrapped around my waist. Whatever path they were hurling headlong down really wasn't my concern. As long as they didn't consider me a suspect, it meant less than nothing to me.
"Someone embezzled a very large sum of money from an account managed at Rick's firm," David said. "An extremely large sum of money."
"Shame on Seleeby and company for not making sure all of the assets linked to the Marcos crime family at Rick's firm weren't frozen. He has no one to blame but himself, yet here I am, tainted once again. Well I won't endure a second round of what I went through when Rick was arrested, David."
"I understand what you're feeling, Helen, I really do. But running away isn't the answer. Darkwater Bay absolutely isn't the answer. Nobody survives the corruption in this city. It's a career ender."
"Then you heard the news."
"That the biggest buffoon in police administration is trying to lure you into signing a contract? Yes. You forgot to erase the messages on your voice mail before you left Georgetown."
I pulled out my badge and waved it in front of him. "You're about ten hours too late, David. It's a done deal. And it's pretty sanctimonious of you to deem this city a career ender after what the FBI has done to my professional reputation in the past three days."
"Don't do this-"
"You need to leave, David. Don't come back. Don't call me. If you want to talk to me again, you can do so through my attorney."
"Helen."
I stepped away.
"Stop running from me. Don't expect me to believe it's an accident that of all cities in the country for you to make a fresh start, you'd pick the one where Sully's nephew happens to live." David grabbed my arm and prevented retreat. His voice was low, intimate, and too quiet for anyone within earshot to hear.
I supposed later that it looked like a lover's quarrel. The twosome quickly transformed into a triangle-at least as far as any witnesses were concerned.
Orion plucked me out of David's grasp and bared his teeth. "Are you alright, Doc?" One arm shielded me from David.
"Yes, I'm fine. Mr. Orion, this is Supervisory Special Agent David Levine." The introduction didn't quell Orion's protective instincts. The man was like an apparition. I hadn't even noticed him lurking around.
"I don't care if he's the freakin' director of the FBI. Nobody grabs you like that."
"Who the hell is this guy, Helen?"
"A concerned bystander." I looked up at Orion. "Please let me handle this. I don't need you protecting me."
"It didn't look that way to me."
"Johnny, please. Let me handle this. David was about to leave anyway, weren't you, David?"
"No, I wasn't leaving. I'm not going until you come to your senses and come home."
"This is her home," Orion growled. "Helen, who is this guy really?"
Jealousy arced like lightning between his eyes.
"He was my former supervisor. I'm not leaving here, all right? We'll meet later like we planned and I'll explain everything. Right now, I need to get back to my dinner guest. If you'll both excuse me." I stared hard at David. "Good bye, David. I wish you only the best."
I hooked my arm through Orion's and gave a not-so-subtle tug. Smoldering eye contact held between David and Orion, but he acquiesced and fell into step beside me.
"What the hell were you thinking?" My lips barely moved around the smile pasted on for the benefit of the spectators in the lobby. "Are you trying to make things worse for me?"
"Doc, I see two guys accost you, one of them grabs you, and in light of what happened Monday, not to mention in your hotel room this morning, what am I supposed to think?"
"That I know what I'm doing and can take care of myself."
"Like you did with the detectives Monday evening?"
"That's hardly fair. I was unarmed at the time, and the last thing I needed was to draw more attention to myself by throwing down with them in a public lobby."
Orion's laugh lacked amusement, fell hard on the side of incredulity. "Throw down? With those two goons? Doc, they collectively outweigh you by five hundred pounds."
"Oh would I love to give you a demonstration on why bulk doesn't matter right about now, but I've kept Maya waiting long enough. Could you please be patient for another hour before you completely destroy any chance I've got to figure out what's really happening in this city?"
"I'll wait. Your friends from Washington are still watching you."
I resisted the urge to turn around. I didn't need to anyway. Orion was right. I could feel their eyes boring into our backs. "Do me a favor, if it's not too presumptuous to ask."
"Name it." He shot a boyish grin down at me.
"I need to talk to Tony Briscoe tonight. I can't trust this place to be secure enough." I pulled the electronic device from my pocket and gauged Orion's reaction to it. "Also, you need to let your guard know that Forsythe is sending someone over to the room to sweep for more of these tonight."
"Where the hell did you find that?" Anger. Determination. Swift assessment of our surroundings. Either Orion was as practiced a liar as I am, or he truly was surprised that someone was interested enough in what I was doing to bug my hotel room.
"The room. After you left, I had Haverston process the scene."
"Good thinking. We'll find a quiet place where we can speak without any ears listening."
"Alone, Orion."
"What?"
"I want to speak to Briscoe alone."
"Why?"
"I need background information from someone who isn't too close to the investigation. You, my newest shadow, are in this up to your eyeballs whether you can see it or not."
"You learned something new? About Gwen?"
"We'll talk after I finish up with Maya."
"Screw that. Ditch her now and talk to me."
"You have serious issues with patience, Orion. No wonder you nabbed the wrong guy in the Bennett case." I let him ponder that, extricated myself from his arm and returned to dinner with Maya.
"I take it your conversation with Officer Haverston was serious." The plate of antipasto was seriously picked over. Maya left me a few olives and some cheese. She grinned. "Sorry. I was hungrier than I realized."
"It's all right. I'm going to have to cut dinner short anyway. Things are heating up in the investigation." Still, which investigation was left to her assumption. I had a niggling suspicion that everything might be linked. God only knew who else's conversations were being monitored. It might've explained how I ended up on someone's radar in Darkwater Bay before George Hardy even called me.
"Are you all right? You seem rather grim, Helen."
"Our federal tax dollars at work," I muttered.
"What?"
"Oh, two of my former colleagues from the FBI showed up while I was talking to Haverston. Apparently, they felt it was appropriate to come see me for an update on their investigation into Rick's murder rather than pick up a telephone."
The more I thought about David's message, the more conspiracies popped into my brain. If he lied, if it was their intent to lure me back to the FBI where a conversation without legal representation could be finagled, it would explain a lot. Nobody would be so careless not to freeze the Marcos assets Rick had managed. Not even the morons in Darkwater Bay's Central Division would make a mistake like that.
I frowned and considered the surveillance device in my pocket again. Had the FBI truly tracked me down today, or had they been following me all along? Wendell never conceived of the advanced tactics on the horizon for law enforcement when he subtly trained me all those years ago.
"I'm still hungry. Do you have time to have a proper meal before you have to leave?"
I picked at the remnants of the appetizer. Hunger was muted by raging distrust of everyone's motives. Everyone but Maya. "I think I've lost my appetite, Maya. I'm so sorry."
"Hey, you gotta take care of yourself in all of this too. You already look like a gust of our evening fog could lay you out flat."
I noticed the ground cover when my flight was landing in Darkwater Bay. Before the plane's descent, the heavy mist obscured specific light, but magnified what lay beneath at the same time, giving an eerie glow to the coastal city.
"Does the sun ever break through the clouds out here?" I forced a smile and picked up my menu. "If not, I could probably make a fortune if I hung a shingle and started working as a psychotherapist. The depression rate in this city must be off the charts."
"It rains about three hundred sixty days a year, or so I've been told. I can remember one brief bout of sunshine in January, shortly after I arrived. The natives attributed it to global warming. You should've seen all the squinting motorists. I don't think you can buy a decent pair of sunglasses in this city."
No wonder I stuck out like a sore thumb at Central Division when I walked into the building. It must've been akin to an alien invasion with my bug-eyed shades.
I picked at the food on my plate, rearranging more than consumed. Maya noticed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Hmm?"
"This thing with the FBI showing up. I know you said that his death didn't really have an emotional impact, Helen, but he was your husband for a long time."
"He lied to me for a very long time too."
"Are you ready to move on?"
"I don't know. What does that mean, really? Move on. Wipe the slate clean. Start over. Why do human beings feel the need to seek out something similar when the first shot was a massive failure?"
"Because people are as varied as snowflakes. What was wrong with Rick might be very right with someone else. Not all men are deceitful creatures."
Thoughts drifted back to Orion for some odd reason, probably the lies he told me in D.C. Then there was David's feigned concern. The only man who never disappointed me, who was always there with wisdom and love had been torn away from me without so much as a glance at the circumstances and justification for his actions.
Wendell Eriksson was judged an evil man. To me, he was the yardstick by which all others would be measured for the rest of my life. Suddenly, my heart ached so deeply for my father that I wasn't sure I could bear the separation for another moment. Someday. It was a promise, a mantra I chanted to myself often since the beginning of our separation. Someday, I would find a way to bring my father back into my life.
"Johnny Orion is back," Maya said softly. "I doubt a blind man could miss his interest."
"Hmm?"
"Orion," she repeated with a slight twist of her neck. "He can't take his eyes off you, Helen."
"I'm meeting him after dinner. More questions about Gwen Foster. Don't get any ideas."
"You're being paranoid, cupcake. Johnny's one of the good guys."
"Don't call me cupcake, and I thought you said he was a jerk."
"He's a brute. That's what I called him, and it wasn't in reference to his personality. Johnny Orion is a very respected person in this city. I think if he had a friendship with Gwen Foster, it was based on mutual respect."
"Not his womanizer tendencies? Forsythe says Orion is famous for the one night stand."
"I wouldn't know anything about that. I know who he is, but we've never met, Helen. If his reputation is so well known that Ken would comment, I can't argue with it."
"His reputation..."
"Yes. You know, that thing you remarked on, what he's known for?"
"Maya, that's it. You're brilliant! Sorry to run out on dinner like this, but I've got to make a stop at central before I meet with someone later this evening. I'll call you soon."