Sins of the Father (6 page)

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I said. “Tell me that
you’d rather have your friend miserable, living half a life out of
fear of being who he really is.”

“It ain’t that simple.”

“He’s seeing someone. Did you know
that?”

“I heard,” he said. “That fella that owns
the bar over here in Downey. Waters.”

“Alex,” I nodded. “They’re very happy.”

“Well ain’t that sweet?”

“Tony, do you deny that you know him better
than anyone else in this city? I know that he and Johnny are
supposedly best friends, but I’d lay odds that Crevan shared more
with you than he ever has with Johnny.”

“Like what?” he mumbled around a bite of
bleeding beef.

“Crevan recently told me some things about
his relationship with his father. I’d lay a fifty on it, that you
know more about his relationship with Aidan than anybody else in
Darkwater Bay.”

“Well, I had the benefit of hearing him vent
about things for a lot of years, but that’s all it was. Blowing off
steam. He didn’t say jack squat to me because he trusted me. I was
just there at the time the gasket blew.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well, his old man has always been a real
son of a bitch. It ain’t rocket science seein’ that a guy might
have to blow every once in awhile over stuff like that.”

“Aidan isn’t being very good to Crevan right
now.”

Tony snorted softly. “Now why ain’t that a
surprise?”

“No, I mean he’s been cruel, Tony. He’s said
things to Crevan that no parent should ever say.”

He laid down his burger and wiped his mouth
with his napkin. “All right. Let me have it. I know that’s what
this is all about, Helen. You might as well spit it out.”

Tony Briscoe was far too easy to manipulate.
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “He told him that he wished
that Crevan had been the son that died, that he was always a
disappointment and that he couldn’t understand why God would punish
him with the weak child and let the good one die.”

“That ain’t the first time Aidan pedaled
that bullshit,” Briscoe’s face turned bright red. “Man oughtta be
horsewhipped. Seriously. What kind of jackass says that shit to his
only son?”

“Not his only one, according to Aidan.”

“Guy’s delusional,” Tony opined.

“What do you mean? Other than the fact that
he couldn’t ask for a better son than the one he got.”

“Well, that’s part of it, true enough,”
Briscoe started eating again. Angry jamming of food into his round
baggy face. “I told Crevan years ago that his daddy was nothin’ but
a goddamned liar. He got pretty upset with me too, never believed a
fuckin’ word I said. I finally threw up my hands in disgust and
told him to trot on over to central and pull the case file if he
didn’t believe me.”

Crevan knew the truth? Why would he choose
to believe his father if Tony already told him that he never had a
stillborn brother? I guarded my expression carefully. “What are you
saying, Tony? That Aidan made the whole story up to manipulate
Crevan?”

“Not the whole thing. Mind you, I was but a
pup beat cop at the time it happened, but the story Aidan told
ain’t exactly the truth. I know people do all sorts of weird shit
to cope with stuff they don’t wanna face. Hell, I guess we all do
it. But that baby was no more stillborn than it was a boy.”

My brain started screaming protest.
Calm
down, Helen. Lead Briscoe to the information you want and let him
blabber. It’s what he does best.
“What really happened?” I
sucked the last of my strawberry shake through the straw and placed
the empty glass at the edge of the table.

“Baby got snatched. I reckon it’s been on my
mind a hell of a lot here lately. Ol’ Aidan threw quite the fuss at
the time, said that if he had an option other than a
Catholic
hospital, that his family would’ve been just fine.
Little girl was born shortly after Crevan, within a few minutes.
They never even got the chance to hold her before some nurse took
off with her, never to be seen again.”

“So naturally, you remembered it when Sofia
Datello was abducted.”

“Sure,” Briscoe nodded slowly. “There ain’t
many old timers like me left on the force these days, Helen, but
what happened was so similar, we couldn’t ignore it. Only
difference was that your baby thief this time didn’t have the
common sense to up and disappear with the kid like that first gal
did.”

“What do you remember about her? That nurse
that stole Crevan’s sister, I mean.”

“I remember that she was new to town, only
worked at the hospital for a couple of weeks before she snatched
the kid and disappeared. As I recall, she wasn’t the most comely
gal we’d ever seen either. Sorta fat and frumpy, kind of woman that
couldn’t get a kid the normal way.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“She’d have to steal one or use a turkey
baster, if you catch my drift.”

“Well, now you know how Aidan treated Crevan
when he learned that his son is gay,” I said. “I suppose it makes
no difference to you that Crevan feels like you hate him for the
same reason his father does.”

“I don’t hate him,” Tony growled. “I hate
that he lied to me for all those years.”

“And what would you say if I told you that
the same denial that kept him from believing that his father lied
to him about this missing versus dead sibling was the same denial
that kept Crevan from recognizing that he wasn’t like all the men
around him?”

“I’d say he needs a therapist.”

“Why, Tony? Because in hindsight it seems so
clear to you that your partner of twelve years was gay?”

He glared at me and shoved a half eaten meal
away. Maxine showed up with my second strawberry shake in the
interim of an uncomfortable silence. Tony waited until she left to
go get me a gigantic, gooey cinnamon roll.

“In hindsight, I suppose you’re right. Maybe
I’m more pissed off at myself for ignoring what I already knew was
true,” Briscoe said. “And Jesus Christ, Eriksson. How much food do
you plan to pack away today?”

“What, you don’t think Johnny will love me
anymore if I get too fat?”

“You could stomp around Hennessey Island on
a peg leg and that man would still love you. I gotta say though,
it’s freakin’ me out a little bit seein’ you eat like this. I think
you’ve had more at lunch than I’ve seen you eat since I met you.
Combined.”

I wasn’t about to let Briscoe get me off
message with a pitiful distraction. “So that’s it, huh? You’re
gonna let a good friend think you hate him, that because he happens
to be a homosexual, that you can no longer stand to speak to him or
even be civil when you see him?”

“He’s the one who ran away from us,” Briscoe
said. “He didn’t even give us a chance, just resigned and went to
work for OSI without so much as a goodbye. What does that tell you
about how he feels about us?”

“By us, you mean you. And it tells me that
he saw your reaction in his apartment when Fulk Underwood spilled
the beans. He probably figured he was avoiding something that would
hurt more than anything else. Losing friends in a confrontation
isn’t very pleasant, Tony.”

“Well, he’s a good cop. I know that’s the
main reason OSI snatched him up. One of ‘em anyway. Johnny would do
anything to protect his friends. That’s the other reason. But word
on the street is that Crevan and Dev jumped outta the fryin’ pan
into the fire. OSI’s days are numbered either way you look at
it.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Polls show that Sanderfield is
pretty well kicking Collangelo’s ass these days. If he wins, OSI is
history. If Collangelo gets a second term, nobody’s gonna go for
the money it costs to keep OSI up and runnin’. It don’t hurt that
OSI took down this human trafficking ring, but Sanderfield’s
squawking to the press that the second the scope of the crime was
apparent, that OSI should’ve turned the whole kit and caboodle over
to the feds.”

“The FBI was involved. David Levine was part
of the team that solved the case, Tony. From what Johnny says, Zack
thinks the prosecution’s case against the surviving conspirators
will be a slam dunk. They caught Destiny Gerard red-handed trying
to abduct the Datello baby a second time. He has hard evidence that
Gillette and Agent Preston were dirty cops. We’ve got Florence
Payette to testify against Melissa Sherman and to offer evidence of
Eugene Sherman’s guilt, even though he died of old age before he
could be prosecuted. Were you aware that he wasn’t even really
Eugene Sherman? He stole the real attaché’s identity. His name was
Gill Vorre. The State Department fired him because he owned
Payette’s mother when he was working as a chef in Saudi Arabia.
Let’s not forget the skeletal remains unearthed behind Vorre’s home
in Montgomery. No way where those skull fractures accidental.”

“You all built a fine case,” Tony agreed
with a curt nod. “That ain’t what Sanderfield wants people seein’.
No, he’d rather focus on his gripe that OSI keeps bendin’ the rules
of fair play. He don’t like it that they charge in and usurp our
jurisdiction. He really don’t like it that Johnny keeps the feds
outta the loop.”

“And if we had shared everything we knew,
what we suspected with Alfred Preston, do you think for one second
that there would’ve been any additional arrests? He’d have covered
the whole thing up. Sanderfield isn’t thinking clearly. And if
Collangelo had an ounce of common sense, he’d be pointing these
things out to the press.”

“There’s another rumor flyin’ around, Helen.
Sanderfield’s supporters are saying that Collangelo is using OSI to
investigate his opponent, little more than a smear campaign to
discredit Sanderfield in the eyes of the voting public.”

“I see.”

“Is it true? Does Johnny think Sanderfield
took illegal campaign contributions?”

“I have no idea what sort of evidence he
has,” I said. That much was true. I knew what Joe and Johnny
suspected. It was what caused the paths of our investigations to
cross in the first place. Eugene Sherman was the epicenter of a
hornet’s nest of criminal activity. I had my suspicions about
Sanderfield’s involvement in my abduction, in this human
trafficking ring.

“Then there is an investigation?”

“There was,” I said, “but Johnny hasn’t been
talking about work so much since I got home from the hospital. In
fact, it hasn’t seemed like he’s done much investigating at all
since then.”

“Yeah, I guess he wouldn’t give a damn about
politicians and their squabbling in light of what happened to you.
See, the thing is this. I know that no matter what happens with
this election that Johnny’s gonna land on his feet and be just
fine. He’s got his other business, that security company he
inherited when his father died. But Puppy ain’t got that. Even if
Aidan turned over the family dough to him on the spot, which I
think we both know isn’t even an option at this point, Puppy
wouldn’t want anything to do with it. I worry about what’ll happen
to him in the meantime. Dev too. Ol’ Darnell should’ve retired long
ago. He don’t need the headache anymore. But these young guys,
what’s gonna happen to them?”

“They’re young, Tony. They’ll figure it out
if it comes to that. Devlin seems to think that the state police
would absorb the staff from OSI, since technically, they’re just a
specialized branch. I’m sure that if Crevan felt he still had
friends in Downey, he might consider coming back here.”

“You ain’t very subtle.”

“I never claimed to be.”

Tony chuckled. “‘Bout as subtle as a brick
to the head. I reckon I’ve missed that most of all, Helen. You made
your point. I ain’t gonna lose sleep worryin’ that an old friend
puts me in the same box as his narrow minded daddy. I’ll give him a
call.”

“I want that, for your sakes mostly,” I
said. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I feel more than a
little bit responsible for what happened, Tony.”

“He confided in you about the gay business,
didn’t he?”

“Not willingly. I guessed. He denied. I told
him it was all right, encouraged him to accept the truth and told
him that the people who know him and love him wouldn’t be upset at
all.”

“And then I got all pissy about it.”

“I do see your perspective in this, Tony. It
was a normal reaction. Please tell Crevan that you weren’t upset
because he’s gay, just that he never felt like he could tell you
the truth, that he didn’t trust that it wouldn’t make a difference
to you.”

He laughed. “You know, if Puppy weren’t what
he is, I figured all along that he was the only guy in Darkwater
Bay that could’ve seriously given Johnny a run for his money with
you.”

My stomach churned at the very idea of
becoming romantically involved with a man who might well be my
biological relative. It revolted so much that I asked Maxine to box
up the cinnamon roll as a to-go order.

Chapter 6

Johnny was unloading boxes from the trunk of
his T-bird when I got back to the house. I parked inside the garage
and ambled to where he continued piling boxes into his arms.

“What’s going on? I thought you already
moved everything in when we made this official a couple of months
ago.”

“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “These
are just some things from the office.”

“So Briscoe’s rumor mill has you worried,” I
said.

“Tony has a big mouth.”

I knew this, counted on it as much as every
resident of Darkwater Bay knew that fog would roll through the city
at sundown. “Johnny, are you giving up on the investigation into
Sanderfield? Tony said that Sanderfield’s people are crying foul
over it.”

“Joe’s trying to make a decision about it.
In the meantime, I’m following orders. For the record, this stuff
merely helps me work from home more efficiently.”