by Rod Kackley
Hans wanted Mary Eileen to tell him all of her wishes so he could make them come true. She was not shy, as evidenced by a strand of real pearls around her neck, the largest diamond ring she found in a downtown jewelry store, and a new car.
Transporting David to the Forest was the only wish she wouldn’t share. Why ruin a good thing, right?
Mary Eileen Sullivan was happy.
It didn’t last.
There was a huge void in her life. Mary Eileen wasn’t sad. She just was not truly satisfied, not yet. She needed more than Hans could provide. And the truth was, Mary Eileen Sullivan did not trust Hans Mueller.
She soon realized Hans was not her Prince Charming and never would be. He was as controlling as David had been. In a way, it was worse. Because he was ten years older than Mary Eileen, she was even more in his power. Or at least he thought she was.
She felt trapped, imprisoned like she was going through life with a plastic bag over her head.
And what was worse was that Mary Eileen felt like — no, she knew — Hans was cheating on her. Hans didn’t make a secret of his dalliances. To him, it was just part of being a man, a real man. If Mary Eileen knows, so what, Hans thought. What’s she going to do about it?
If only David were there; he could have answered the question for Hans.
Of course, Hans had no idea what was about to happen, but as far as Mary Eileen was concerned, his fate was sealed.
He’d be her second kill.
But this time, it would be easier.
Mary Eileen had learned that shooting someone to death was relatively straightforward. The hard part was getting rid of the evidence, the largest piece of which was the body.
Looking back at her experience with David, Mary Eileen decided she needed to get better at using the chainsaw that was still in the cellar and mixing concrete, which also was waiting for her in what had become Hans’ final resting place.
She needed to go to a professional. No, not a hit man.
Mary Eileen went back to the stores where she had purchased the saw and the concrete and signed up for the advanced courses the retailers had for their professional construction customers.
When she was ready, this time, Mary Eileen was really ready.
She was prepared to confront Hans.
Fourteen
Hans and Mary Eileen were drinking whiskey after an evening out with friends before they got into a drunken argument. They had thrown off their clothes with the abandon of teenage lovers whose parents were away for the night and raced to the bed.
All went well, until Hans made a mistake.
“What did you say?” Mary Eileen said with just a hint of slurred words and way more Irish brogue than was normal. She’d had more than her share of Jameson’s out of a bottle Hans had brought home from the restaurant. Mixing it with wine had sharpened her wits, or so she thought.
Hans put his arms around her and squeezed as he picked her up off the bed.
“What did you call me,” she said.
Hans held her a little tighter, tensing — Mary Eileen could feel the muscles in his arms tighten up. He was behind her. She could feel him getting hard and then softening against her butt.
“I asked,” Hans said, “if you had a good time tonight with Cathy and Phil.”
“No, you didn’t, you fucking pig,” Mary Eileen said as she spun around to face him and push his arms down and his body away from her.
“You called me, ‘Cathy,’” Mary Eileen said. “You drifted off in your mind. You were pretending you were with her.”
Cathy was even younger that Mary Eileen. She was much cuter and even spoke German, as least enough to get Hans to laugh at a couple of jokes that neither Phil nor Mary Eileen could understand at dinner.
“I did not,” Hans said. He stood straight up. His six-foot-four-inch frame towered over Mary Eileen by nearly a foot. It was usually enough to scare her into submission. Some nights she liked that. In the beginning, she had loved it. He was so much like her father, Michael, as she remembered him in the Old Country.
But it wasn’t working for either of them, tonight.
“You fucking are hot for her,” Mary Eileen said, bouncing a fingertip off his chest.
Hans had opened his shirt at dinner, pretending it was too warm. God, how I hate that, Mary Eileen had thought at the time.
It wasn’t the wine or the Jameson's that had her simmering. She had simmered at dinner. Mary Eileen was close to a full boil, now.
“You always have been,” she continued. “Every fucking woman you fucking see, you have to think about fucking them.”
“I do not. You need to calm down, young lady.”
“Young lady? Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?”
“I’m talking to a fucking brat, that’s who I’m talking to,” Hans said. “See, I can drop the F-bomb too.”
Hans took a step toward her.
She took a step back.
He reached toward her and ran his fingers through her thick, auburn hair which had fallen to her shoulders after the red ribbon that had been holding it disappeared.
Mary Eileen took another step back and grabbed Hans’ hand to keep it away from her hair
“Sie sind mein schönes Mädchen,” Hans said, “ich werde dich immer lieben.”
Mary Eileen stopped. Now she held Hans by the wrist and moved a step closer to him.
My beautiful girl, I will love you always, Mary Eileen translated to herself. Hans had taught her a few phrases in German, phrases he wanted her to know. She might not have gotten every word correct, but she understood.
Even though Mary Eileen didn’t think she could trust Hans to keep his big thing out of any girl or woman who offered, she gave in. His blue eyes, cold silver hair, wide shoulders and that goddamn dimple on the left side of his face always does it, she thought.
She stepped closer to him.
Hans put both arms around her waist and drew Mary Eileen tight against his chest. She could feel his heat beating.
“Und ich bin dein, Daddy,” she said, “und ich bin dein. I am yours, Daddy.”
It was time for some intense role play. She could feel how excited Hans had become and that aroused Mary Eileen.
They went to bed and made love as a father and his little girl.
But this was not settled as far as Mary Eileen was concerned. Even while she was making love to Hans, she was thinking about how to get even with him and best-case scenario; be free of him
When she returned from the bathroom, Mary Eileen sat on her side of the bed, placed her hand on Hans’ chest, and told him that she still loved him and always would.
Hans rolled over on his side, facing away from her and went to sleep. To add insult to injury, he began snoring.
Hans was ignoring her. She might have been able to tolerate that, but he was also snoring. That was the final straw.
Mary Eileen was enraged.
The Beretta was under the mattress on her side of the bed.
While Hans rested peacefully, snoring perhaps as gently as a man could, Mary Eileen reached under the bed. Her hand came back with the pistol, the same gun she had used to kill David.
Hans was on his side, facing away from Mary Eileen. He was still snoring. If he hadn’t been snoring, Mary Eileen might have stopped. But he didn’t, so she didn’t. Holding her breath, she pressed the barrel the gun against the back his head and fired. The first one was the tough one. After that, Mary Eileen squeezed off four more shots into the back of her lover’s head.
Each .22 caliber bullet made a relatively clean entrance. Like with David, most of the bullets stayed inside his skull, ricocheting through Han’s brain, chewing up tissue and his life as they went. But those that exited Han’s head blew a decent-sized hole in his face.
The bed was a mess. It was worse than the brains, blood, skull fragments and God knows what else coated the dining room table after David’s execution. His remains had fallen on a wooden table and a tile floor.
Mary Eileen was breathing fast and furiously. Her heart was racing. Once her breathing slowed, she crept to the bedroom window and sighed as quietly as possible, trying to sense if the neighbors had heard anything.
The night was still. Everything was quiet. Mary Eileen calmed herself, walked into the living room, laid down on the couch, and went to sleep. She knew from the last time; there was no need to rush.
THE NEXT MORNING SHE went back into the bedroom, where Hans’ body was still lying on the bed. Even more so than she had been with David’s corpse, Mary Eileen was racked with guilt.
Mary Eileen knelt beside the bed, touched his hand and asked Hans for his forgiveness before she began the process of disposing of his body.
It was early Sunday morning. The neighborhood was as quiet as it had been several hours ago when Mary Eileen first squeezed the trigger on the Beretta. Beyond the task that lay ahead of her, she had no worries.
Mary Eileen knew it was time to go to work. She dragged Hans’ body downstairs to the cellar where the chainsaw and cement were waiting.
“I guess Cheryl is going to hear the coffee grinder again,” Mary Eileen said to herself.
Fifteen
When Sean Patrick Flynn walked into the Coffee Shoppe it wasn’t a case of love at first sight — well, there was some of that — but it was most certainly lust at first glance, at least for Mary Eileen.
He walked in with none of the false bravado of Hans. He didn't have the German’s swagger or the attitude of the guy who had always been the biggest, strongest kid on the playground. Sean didn’t have the faux intellectualism of David. And there was certainly none of David’s mama’s boy attitude about Sean.
Mary Eileen sensed it immediately, the way a dog might sense another canine that he or she both wants and needs. Yeah, there was a strong scent of animal magnetism at play.
Mary Eileen could tell immediately the man who had walked into the Coffee Shoppe, this man for whom the rest of humanity parted just as the Red Sea did for Moses was special. And he felt it so strongly he didn’t have to tell anyone else.
Here was a man who never whined, a man who never pushed or bullied, who was supremely confident enough to make others the center of attention.
And then, he spoke.
“Good morning,” the man said with a smile. His warm, blue eyes met Mary Eileen’s green eyes. He didn’t drill into her soul or anything like that. It was more of a soft touch, a caressing of everything that was Mary Eileen.
He didn’t take her breath away. Instead, he made it easy for her to speak.
“Good morning, to you,” Mary Eileen answered. “I’m Mary Eileen Sullivan. And I am here to serve you. What’ll you have today?”
Her Irish brogue was a bit more pronounced than usual, but it rolled off her tongue so easily. And the best part was, it matched his to perfection.
Mary Eileen Sullivan felt that she was home again.
“And my name is Sean Patrick Flynn, Ms. Mary Eileen Sullivan. I am very pleased to meet you,” he said, “ and I will have one of your tall, dark coffees.”
A “thank you” and a “you’re welcome, come again,” later, this conversation was finished. That was all. But it was enough for Mary Eileen.
The first time Mary Eileen spoke with Sean might have been only a short customer-barista kind of conversation. But it left her with the feeling that she was the most important, unique person with whom he had spoken that day. Nothing else mattered more at the moment he ordered a tall, dark coffee than Mary Eileen. At least that’s the way he made her feel.
“Tall and dark he is not, but he is perfect for you, no?” Christina whispered as Sean left the Coffee Shoppe. “He was just like a white Denzel Washington, the way he looked at you and talked to you.”
The next time, Sean and Mary Eileen spoke a few more words and they exchanged a few more words during the transaction after that. Eventually, the counter between them would disappear. But Sean was showing Mary Eileen the courtesy of taking his time as if he had all the time in the world for something that was good enough to last the rest of their lives.
Sean came into the Coffee Shoppe a fourth time, about a week after his first coffee, and invited Mary Eileen to join him at one of the round, wooden tables by the window.
She glanced back at Christina, received a nod and a wink signifying she could handle the two or three customers in line, and said, “Of course, I would love too.”
They talked for an hour. Mary Eileen and Sean discovered their ancestors had lived near each other in Ireland.
They both loved football, or soccer as the heathens in America would call the game, even though they rooted for opposing teams. The sports debate that followed added a vibrant, nearly erotic, flashpoint to their relationship even before they had undressed each other for the first time.
Christina refilled coffees with the grace of a Five-Star restaurant hostess, never intruding, but never far away in case she was needed.
Mary Eileen told Sean more about herself than she had told anyone, even Christina.
She spoke of her life in Dublin, why she left Ireland, landing in New York, and how she came to be in St. Isidore.
She told him about everything and everyone except David and Hans.
Sean spoke with what the Americans in the Coffee Shoppe would consider to be a soft Irish brogue, an accent that Mary Eileen didn’t hear. To her, he was speaking as everyone spoke, or at least as she spoke, with a smile never leaving his face. He too talked about how he came to America, much like Mary Eileen did, and how he had decided to stay in America.
“He’s a visiting professor of literature, from Dublin,” Christina told several customers the next day. “His name is Sean Patrick Flynn. He works at the University of Michigan, but he should be on TV. Isn’t he just perfect?”
Their initial conversation would be only the first time they shared stories and life experiences. That was the best phrase to describe what Mary Eileen and Sean did. They shared.
Their relationship was not as fast, furious, or frenzied, as that of two teenagers in the backseat of Daddy’s car. Mary Eileen was not racing to the finish line because she couldn’t stand to spend even one more night alone. Neither was Sean. They were not looking for a one-night stand. They were seeking something more.
Sixteen
Mary Eileen hesitated before asking Sean to come inside for a drink. She feared to spoil a perfect evening.
It wasn’t their first date. It was more like the third or fourth.
“We’ve become such a couple and had spent so much time together that it is tough to tell when we're on ‘a date,’” Mary Eileen said during the after-gun range gathering inside the Coffee Shoppe, “or when we are just together.”
Mary Eileen and Sean were the talk of St. Isidore. She and he knew that. They saw people whispering behind their hands at Charlie’s Crab, the city’s premier seafood restaurant.
Charlie's was an ideal place for a foodie like Mary Eileen. Charlie's served only the freshest fish. The wait staff was college-educated, the chefs were European-trained. When Mary Eileen was inside Charlie's, she forgot about being in St. Isidore.
“Is Charlie still around?” Sean asked.
“Oh, no,” Mary Eileen said with a sly smile. “He was doing some deep-sea fishing off the Keys a few years ago when a storm blew in, and his cruiser capsized.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, wow!” Mary Eileen said. “So after all those years of selling seafood, suddenly, he was seafood.”
“Funny.”
“At least that’s our best guess. Charlie and the boat disappeared.”
The rest of the night was spent sharing their memories of Ireland, England, and their wonder at "how American these Americans are."
Sean was the perfect dinner companion. But he was more. He was quickly becoming Mary Eileen's lover, and she his.
Close to midnight, Sean waited for her in bed as she
returned to the bedroom with their drinks.
“So, this Charlie guy,” Sean said, “He just vanished.”
“Yes, he just disappeared,” Mary Eileen said, slightly surprised at Sean’s choice of conversation topics, sitting as closely together as they were in her bed, propped up against some pillows, naked, shoulders and thighs touching.
“Did they just give up looking?”
“I guess. But why are you so interested in Charlie?”
“Oh, it’s not Charlie per se, it is just that it’s amazing how many people go missing. We never see them again.”
Mary Eileen shifted a couple of inches away from Sean. He might not have said anything immediately after her joke about Charlie becoming seafood, but now he had, and Sean seemed to be venturing awfully close to an area Mary Eileen would just as soon avoid.
Her green eyes flashed, her chin set in a defiant posture. Mary Eileen suddenly regretted asking this man into her bed. She had already made two terrible mistakes. She didn’t want to make a third.
“But wait,” he said. “I forget to show you this book I found the last time I was in Dublin.”
Sean reached into his well-worn, brown leather messenger bag that had traveled the world with him, and pulled out a large, thick book. Mary Eileen had been wondering why he’d carried it into the bedroom.
As suddenly as it had come into her mind, any indecision Mary Eileen might have had about inviting Sean to her bed quickly vanished. She’d wrapped her arms and one leg around him two-seconds after they’d walked into her apartment. They had made love wildly, spontaneously and passionately.
The afterglow, which had dimmed momentarily, had returned. It was even nicer than the passion.
“It’s a book of Irish love poems,” Sean explained. “All of them were translated from the original Gaelic. This volume went out of print in 1968, so it’s relatively rare.”