by Boyett-Compo
He turned toward his bunk, sat, and hung his head. “She is my heart. She is everything to me. What else have I got?”
“You've got me, son. If you need a friend, someone to talk to, someone you can count on, give me a call. I'll be there for you.”
Sean tried to smile, but only a grimace touched his mouth. He stretched out on the cot. “I appreciate that,” he said, turning his back to her and pulling up his knees.
As if unable to think of anything helpful to say, the detective left, her heels making hollow sounds on the concrete. Sean heard the door slam at the far end of the corridor. Never had he felt so alone.
He buried his face in his pillow and wept.
CHAPTER 12
“Cullen!” the guard yelled. “You got a visitor!”
Sean crowned Joey Petersen's queen, then ran the checkerboard, taking all his opponent's men. He grinned at the black man.
“Damned lucky Mick,” Joey grumbled. He took up the checkerboard, folded it, and stuck it under his left arm. “I ain't playing with you no mo'!” He got up from the bench.
“Same time tomorrow?”
Joey threw up a hand as though dismissing the notion, but nodded as he ambled away, his right arm swinging and his head moving in rhythm to a beat only he heard.
“Cullen! Did you hear me, boy?”
Sean sighed and pushed up from the bench. He had less than a week to go on his sentence. He knew he wouldn't miss the harsh tones and insulting attitude of the guards.
“Hurry up yo’ lazy ass,” the guard, Bob Powell, snapped. “That man don't look like he's got much patience.”
Sean halted in mid-step. “What man?’
“Some uppity doctor.”
A jolt ran through Sean. He looked toward the door leading from the exercise yard. The only doctors he knew were Bronwyn's father and the court-appointed psychologist, Dr. Neal Hesar, who had examined his mother.
“Will you get on in there?” Powell snarled, shoving Sean. “I ain't got all day to wait on you!”
Stumbling forward, Sean's mind raced. He couldn't believe it would be McGregor, but that was a possibility. If Bronwyn's father had learned Sean would be released soon, he might have come to toss around some more threats.
“Or try to bribe me...”
“What?” Powell demanded.
Sean shook his head. “Just talking to myself.”
“You getting to be as crazy as that mama of yourn.”
Sean dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from lashing out at the overweight guard. He clenched his teeth and kept walking with slower-than-normal steps toward the visitor's room.
He was worried. If it was Dr. Hesar, he might have bad news about Sean's mother. Could something have happened to her? Had one of the other inmates done something to her?
Sean stopped before going into the room. His heart pounded.
“Ah, for cryin’ out loud!” Powell reached around Sean to open the door. “Get the hell in there! You act like you going to an execution!”
He put his hand in the middle of Sean's back and shoved him through the doorway. Stumbling into the room, Sean had to put out his hands to keep from falling onto the long table in the room's center.
The tall man standing in the shadows was neither Dr. McGregor nor Dr. Hesar. He was too brawny to be one, and too tall to be the other. Though he couldn't see the man's face, Sean had the impression he knew him.
“Leave us,” the man commanded.
Without a word, Powell stepped back, shut the door, and locked it.
Sean straightened and squared his shoulders. “Do I know you?”
“Sit down.”
A spark of anger shot through Sean, but he did as he was told. He'd learned the hard way that ignoring orders in jail could be a painful enterprise.
“Painful as well as foolish,” the man commented. He spoke with a thick brogue.
Sean flinched. His heart began to thump as the man stepped from the shadows.
“And you are not a foolish, Sean. You're a smart man. Very intuitive.”
“You were in the courtroom.”
“That I was.”
The man took a seat across from Sean. He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and cocked his head to one side. “Can you guess who I might be?”
The answer came too quickly. “No.”
“Ah, now,” the man said with a click of his tongue. “Don't play stupid with me, Seannie. You know damned well who I am.” He unfolded his arms and sat forward. He rested his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers together, and stared Sean in the eye. “Tell me who I am.”
“My father,” Sean whispered as though the words were being torn from his throat with hot pincers.
The man nodded, his slow smile like a seal of approval. “Aye, I am indeed.”
Sean gazed at the thick blond hair combed back from the man's high forehead. He took note of the emerald green eyes, the strong jaw and full lips, the thick eyelashes and curving slash of brow. He stared at the mole on the man's lean cheek and reached up to finger a similar one on his own face. It was like Sean looked into a mirror, imagining his own appearance thirty years down the line. In one way it was comforting, but in another, it was unsettling.
The man chuckled. “At least you know you won't wind up looking like Tymothy Cullen—fat, with a gut hanging over your belt and a neck the size of a bull's.”
“Why didn't she tell me about you?”
“Ah, but she couldn't, you see.”
“No, I don't see. Did he know about you?”
“Tym? Unfortunately, he did. I am sure his decision to tell you about me cost him his life. She would not allow it.” He took a deep breath. “She could not.”
“Why?”
“It would be best if I start at the beginning and tell you the whole of it. It's time you knew anyway.” He leaned back in his chair. “My name is Brian O'Shea. Dr. Brian O'Shea. I am a generic engineer. But what I do and why I do it is not important. What is important is how I came to know your mother.”
Sean watched the older man's face. A sheen of perspiration formed on O'Shea's forehead, while a darkness in his gaze held Sean in thrall and made the hairs on his arms stir.
“She lived down the road from the institute where I worked in Roundstone. From the window of my laboratory, I used to watch her going through the pasture to feed her father's animals.” He smiled wistfully. “Aye, but she was a beauty with her long blond hair swinging against her hips. Shapely, she was, and what you would call buxom. I knew I had to meet her. So I did. It was like a thunderbolt struck us both that day.”
O'Shea didn't speak again for a long time. When he did, his voice became a near whisper.
“I wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the local girls. The people I worked for brought prostitutes in on occasion for us. They were never the same ones twice. You see, once they came to Fuilghaoth, they were never heard from again.” He looked at his hands. “The rumor was they never left the grounds.”
Sean frowned. “What kind of place was this?”
“Is,” Brian corrected. “Fuilghaoth is a large research center.”
“I don't remember my mother mentioning any institute near where she grew up in Clifden,” Sean said, suspicious.
“She wouldn't have talked of it, lad. No more than any of the locals will talk of it today. To do so is to risk terrible vengeance from the Stalcaires.”
Sean shook his head. “I don't—”
“It means ‘stalker’ in Gaelic. That's what the security men at the institute are called. You might call them a modern-day Irish Gestapo. With their black uniforms and paramilitary training, they are so quiet no one ever knows they're about. Not until somebody winds up in the river, face down with his throat cut. The locals pretend Fuilghaoth isn't there. It's safer for them that way.”
“So you lusted after my mother, putting her in danger, knowing what might happen to her.”
“What would you do to be with your Bronw
yn?” O'Shea asked, his gaze locked on Sean.
When Sean only shrugged, O'Shea nodded in agreement.
“She was all I could think about, Sean. I wasn't doing my job because I was watching her, plotting ways to meet her near the creek. I was so intoxicated with her, all I could do was dream of us being together. Of lying in that pasture, holding her, making love to her.”
Sean shifted in his seat. It was uncomfortable hearing his mother described in such a way by a stranger. He looked away from the intense verdant stare aimed at him. “I don't need to know that.”
“Each of us goes through a period when we can not think of our parents being anything but our parents. We don't want to admit they have sexuality. There was nothing dirty about what she and I had together. We were very much in love. Just as you and Bronwyn are.”
“Then why didn't you marry her?”
“I wanted to, Sean. More than anything in this world, but they wouldn't let me.”
Deep pain shook Brian O'Shea's voice; his hands trembled. Looking into the face so like his own, Sean recognized true anguish. Instinct made him reach out.
O'Shea took his son's hand, gripping it fiercely. “I loved her, Sean. I love her still, but I had to stand by and watch them give her to one of the Stalcaires. Even knowing what the brute might do to her, I had no choice. I couldn't let them kill her!”
“Cullen was the Stalcaire?”
Brian nodded, a muscle working in his jaw. “And the worst of his kind, I was later told. He took her to Dublin and found a priest to marry them. A day later, they boarded a ship for America. I never saw her again, until the day of her trial. Had I known what would happen if they found out about her and me, I would have never laid a hand on Dorrie Burke. I would have kept the walls of Fuilghaoth between her and I!”
“She was pregnant with me when she left. And they found out?”
“Aye, and threatened to kill her. I was valuable to them. More valuable than even I knew, so they dared do nothing to me. But they knew they had leverage they could use against me, to keep me in line for the rest of my life. When I was brought before the Breithmh, the Tribunal, I was given a choice. I could either watch them murder Dorrie and her unborn child, or I could do as they wanted and she would live. All they had to do was hint they'd hurt her and I'd move heaven and earth to do what they wanted.”
Sean tried not to wince when the man's fingernails dug into his hand. He placed his free hand over O'Shea's. “You're hurting me.”
O'Shea groaned. He let go of Sean and sat back. Closing his eyes, he ran a hand over his face. “Forgive me, lad. That is something I never meant to do.” He opened his eyes. “You've been hurt enough.”
Sean shrugged, embarrassed. “It's okay.”
“No, it isn't. And what I have to say will hurt you even more, but there's no way around it. You have to be told.”
Sean cradled his hand against his chest, rubbing away the pain. He sensed great sadness in O'Shea. Knowing it would be best to say nothing, he leaned back in his chair and waited.
“As I said, an intuitive man,” O'Shea said gently.
“Did I inherit that ability from you?” Sean asked, knowing O'Shea would understand what he meant.
The man shrugged. “In a matter of speaking. You get me, you get the gift.” He smiled crookedly. “Or the curse of it, depending on how you view it, I suppose.”
The door opened and a guard appeared. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Time's up.”
Brian O'Shea never raised his voice. He simply locked eyes with the guard. “Do not disturb us again.” His tone was firm, gentle, but there was steel beneath the softness.
The guard smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“And see that no one else bothers us, either.”
“Yes, sir.” The guard stepped back through the door and closed it.
Neither Sean nor O'Shea spoke for a few ticks of the clock hanging on the wall. The silence was deafening and it wore on them like a wet wool coat. Both squirmed in their seats at the same time, then laughed together.
O'Shea took a deep breath. “Have you tried things like that?”
Sean shrugged. “A few times. It usually doesn't work.”
“You have to practice. I'll teach you a thing or two about controlling others’ minds.”
“That would have come in handy on test days.”
O'Shea grinned. “Aye, but try not to use it for cheatin', lad. Evil begets evil, you know?”
“I'll try to remember that. So go on with your story.”
“Here is the way of it, lad,” O'Shea said in a voice that had suddenly turned hoarse. “In 1956, an Irish-American surgeon and amateur botanist named Daniel Dunne went to Ireland to study the plant life in the bogs of the Iveragh and Beara peninsulas. He rented a rather isolated farmhouse out in the Connemara countryside and set up a small laboratory. Accompanying him were two assistants—Louis Lutz and Helen Bryan. Dunne also hired a local man named Seamus MacCarthy, somewhat of an odd bird even by Irish standards, to be their guide and erstwhile protector. Why Dunne felt he needed a bodyguard has never been explained, but they say MacCarthy was a man few messed with. Today, he is in charge of the Stalcaire Unit.”
“He sounds like the kind of man who might take his job very seriously.”
“The man is a flaming lunatic,” O'Shea grumbled. “He enjoys hurting people and watching ‘em being hurt.”
Sensing there was a lot of history between Brian O'Shea and Seamus MacCarthy better left untold, Sean asked his visitor to continue.
“It was on the evening of March Twenty-ninth when Dunne and his team, plus MacCarthy and three other men, were finishing up taking samples at Roundstone Bog. The sun was going down and the fog was drifting in. Dunne spotted a promising looking area he wanted to explore and headed there. In the fading light, he somehow managed to lose his balance and fall into the bog. Since falling into one of the bogs was always a distinct possibility when they were working, they carried with them a long length of rope. MacCarthy ran to where Dunne was floundering, but before they could reach him, Dunne sank beneath the surface.”
Sean shuddered. “I hate the water. I never learned to swim.”
“I used to be a right good swimmer, but I don't do it any more.”
“I take it Dunne didn't drown?”
“Unfortunately not. Fearing the loss of probably the first decent-sized paycheck he'd ever had, MacCarthy tied the rope to his waist and dove in after his boss. The others held on to the rope. Many minutes passed before they felt a tugging on the line. The men pulled MacCarthy and Dunne out of the bog, but Dunne was shouting that they'd found something down there and wanted it brought up.”
“Found something?”
“A body, it was.”
“Some poor fool who'd also stumbled into the bog?”
“Well, they've been finding bodies in the bogs of Ireland, England, and Denmark for a long time, lad. Many of them the scientists think were Druid sacrifices, but no doubt many were murder victims. What better way to rid youself of an unwanted corpse than dropping it into a bog? The bodies they've discovered have been pretty well preserved, thanks to the composition of the peat, and some of them date back to 8000 B.C.”
“That's incredible!”
“Aye, but when MacCarthy dove back in and they brought up that body, I'm sure none of them was expecting what they saw.”
Sean grinned. “One of the bog creatures, eh?”
“It was surely that. A creature unlike any they'd ever seen. It was covered in thick black fur, with sharp fangs and talons, but it had the build of a man. Well over six feet tall, it was barrel-chested with long, powerful legs and arms. The thing's face looked more like that of a wolf, but the body was fashioned more after a gorilla. It had eyes the color of blood, and fangs hooked like that of the old pictures of sabertooth tigers.”
“What was it?”
“On the creature's chest, right about here"—O'Shea put his palm over his left pectoral muscle—"burned in
to the flesh, was a tattoo that looks like the grim reaper, complete with the bloody sickle. Dunne labeled it a Reaper, not knowing that is exactly what the creature was called.”
“How did he find that out?”
O'Shea sighed. “I'll get to that. Right now, let's just concern ourselves with the discovery of the Reaper.”
“Okay. Do they know how long it was in the bog?”
“When they did the carbon dating, they decided the creature had been in the bog at least five thousand years.”
Sean whistled. “Considering what a find that was, why hasn't the world been told about the creature?”
“When I'm finished with the tale, you'll know,” O'Shea admonished. “Stunned but excited at having found something so alien, Dunne loaded the creature's body into the boot of their car and took it back to the farmhouse. Once there, Dunne swore them all to secrecy. No one was to learn of the creature's existence until after it had been studied at length. I would imagine Dunne had visions of making a name for himself with the discovery of this ape-like man. He was a learned scientist and no doubt had read tales of the Yeti in the high Himalayas and similar creatures such as the North American Sasquatch. I am sure he thought he had found just such an animal in West Ireland.
“They began taking pictures of the body from every conceivable angle. When they turned the creature onto its belly to take pictures of its backside, another astonishing fact greeted them.”
“What?” Sean whispered.
“Something was moving around under the skin.”
Sean's mouth fell open. “No way.”
O'Shea smiled. “Aye, something was very much alive inside it.”
“A rat or something like that?”
“It wasn't anything that had crawled inside the corpse. It was something else. Something that had been inside the body when it went into the bog.”
Sean sat up straighter. “Something else? You mean like an offspring?”
“No, it was very much a male. The genitalia on that thing would make any porn star envious!”