Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers))

by Lowe, Tom

  “Are you the manager?

  “At your service, Courtney.”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “I knew of your description from my dear friend Isaac. I figured you have to be Courtney Burke. I’m Boots Langley. Don’t let my size trick you. Although I don’t have Samson’s girth or prowess, I do have his inner strength, or so I’ve been told.”

  “What kind of snake is that?”

  “A ball python. She’s an albino. That’s why her eyes are red as rubies. I was just about to feed Sheba a fat rat. Would you like to watch? Most people do like to watch, you know. They say they don’t, but in reality they enjoy seeing the life literally squeezed from vermin. Maybe it’s the shrieks from the dying rat, too. Would the same sentiment prevail if the dinner was … umm … a cat, the natural-born adversary of the mouse?”

  “I hope not. I love cats.”

  “But do cats love you? Is the feline brain capable of emotional attachment, let alone love? We humans perform janitorial work for cats, and what is their reciprocity, beyond sitting atop a piano and refusing to socialize unless it’s caused by a culinary bribe. ALF was one of my favorite TV shows.”

  “Isaac said you were a little different?”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Courtney smiled.

  “Isaac told me what happened. How does a young woman like you get in the middle of not one, but two killings? You seem like a dove. Are you a hawk at heart?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  Boots studied her for a moment, his eyes impish. “One of the former police chiefs in Gibtown used to say ‘sometimes some people needed a good killing.’ He kept the peace quite efficiently, I do recall. And he was shorter than me.” Boots’ tongue flickered once through his pursed lips like the snake around his shoulders.

  Courtney blew out a breath. “Maybe I should go someplace else.”

  “Butterfly, where are you going to go? As long as you weren’t followed, this is a great place to hide out. And you will, by no means, be the first seeking refugee here from the long arm of the law. Isaac told me Carlos Bandini is looking for you, too. I’d be more concerned about him than the police. Come, child. And since I’m older than dinosaur dirt, I can say that. I’ll show you your castle, not by the sea. But by a place known as Bullfrog Creek.”

  Boots led Courtney through a curtain of multi-colored beads hanging in a doorway. They walked down a short hallway and onto a screened-in back porch overlooking a wide creek at the end of a long, sloping yard. Inside the enclosure was a rattan table and two chairs. Blooming petunias grew from three hanging baskets. A television, tuned to CNN, sat on a small wicker table in front of a brown rattan couch. In one corner, a large white cockatoo perched on a T-stand dropped a strawberry, and started barking like a dog.

  Courtney smiled. “That bird … I heard barking just like that when I was walking up to the door. I thought it was a big dog. That’s amazing.”

  Boots smiled, his eyes playful. “Shhh, don’t let her hear that she’s not a dog. I had a Rottweiler for six years. Clementine, up there on her perch, sounds identical to my sweet Eve before her untimely death.”

  Courtney looked at the snake, its eyes trained on the cockatoo rocking back and forth on the stand. “What happened to your dog?”

  “The serpent got to her.”

  “What? Your snake?”

  “No, not Sheba, of course. It was a moccasin down by the creek. The serpent struck Eve on her chest. It was sort of a debauched homecoming in a post-Eden kind of way, I suppose.” He stroked the snake’s head. “I worked circuses, carnivals, and sideshows for fifty years. I bought this property in 1975 with the intent to retire here, rent out a few trailers, fish, and watch sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico.” He pointed to an Airstream trailer down by the creek. “That trailer is yours. It’s the most remote one I have. Sits less than twenty feet from the creek. Stay as long as you want. Isaac vouches for you, and that’s more than good enough for me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just be mindful of water moccasins. Especially at night.”

  As they turned to walk out the door, a news anchor on CNN said, “In Florida, police have a manhunt underway for a young woman who is a suspect in two murder cases. Both are involving carnival workers who were killed. Police are searching for nineteen-year-old Courtney Burke, last seen at the county fairgrounds not far from Daytona Beach. Investigators haven’t officially confirmed whether she’s also a suspect in the deaths of two more carnival workers earlier this year. If so, she would be one of the youngest female serial killers in the nation’s history.”

  Courtney stared at the TV screen. “Oh my God! That’s so wrong. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  “Come, I need to hear your story. You’ll be safe for a while here. But people talk. Stay in your trailer as much as possible. Another thing, if you ever hear Clementine barking real fast, consider that a warning. She has a slow bark which you heard when you were arriving. Her fast bark is when danger is closer. She may be able to imitate sounds, but in her tiny bird brain she has a sixth sense about real threats. Heed her warning.”

  25

  Two hours after I left The Villages, I was pulling in the Ponce Marina parking lot. I shut off the Jeep’s engine and could smell the coming of rain in the humid air. The entire drive I’d thought about what Andrea Logan told me. A daughter.

  My daughter, maybe.

  Now a grown woman. My gut was churning. After the deaths of my parents, there was no biological family left. Period. My wife, Sherri, and I had talked about children. When she began her long fight with ovarian cancer, it was never discussed again. And now … and now what? How could I miss someone I never knew existed? Maybe it was the absolute knowledge of a daughter’s physical being—her life, the absence of shared experiences, the total emptiness of a cancelled twenty-year flight to the moon and back with a little girl who I never knew lived in the same universe. How could I sit here in my Jeep, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine, and feel a coldness in my heart for circumstances that were truly beyond my control?

  Fat raindrops began to flatten across the Jeep’s window, and then a hard rain fell. I watched the water sluice from the leaves of banana plants growing near the Tiki Bar, puddles rising in low spots across the parking lot. How did the void of an unknown father-daughter relationship cause me to feel pain from a wound that was never self-inflicted? Until now. It wasn’t physical. Purely a wound of the heart, a mourning for the lost years, the hugs, butterfly kisses, ball games, school plays, the unconditional bond between a father and daughter that has no expiration date.

  As a homicide detective, I learned to look closely at patterns, patterns of human behavior, and patterns of physical and forensic evidence. Very few things in the nature of crime were coincidental. Human influence always creates spin on the cue ball of fate. Was it a coincidence that Courtney Burke popped into my life? Was it a coincidence that I found out about Andrea’s pregnancy?

  Was Courtney Burke my daughter?

  I didn’t know. But I did know that come hell or high water, I’d find out. And then what would I do in view of the circumstances of late? I had no idea. Slay one dragon at a time, unless they come in pairs.

  There was a tap against the Jeep’s side window. Kim Davis stood there under a large black umbrella. I opened the door and she said, “Hi, Sean. Thought I’d come rescue you. Saw your Jeep pull up a while ago.”

  I got out and ducked under the umbrella. “Thank you. Looks like the storm is sitting right on top of us.”

  She smiled, the mist from the blowing rain wetting her chestnut hair. She pulled a dark strand behind her right ear and looked up at me as I wrapped my hand around hers to steady the umbrella in the wind and rain. “C’mon, Sean, let’s go jump in the puddles.” She put her left hand in the small of my back and playfully nudged me toward a large puddle, the thump of rain hard against the umbrella.

  I stopped a
moment. “Tell you what, let’s jump over the puddle instead of jumping into it.”

  Kim grinned and said, “Okay, on your mark … get set … go!” We ran and jumped over the puddle like two school kids caught in the rain. She laughed. “If I didn’t have any customers, we could play in the rain.”

  We huddled under the umbrella and walked inside the Tiki Bar. A retired charter boat captain who resembled Willie Nelson, perched on a stool with his back to the bar, watching us and grinning through salt and pepper whiskers. He said, “Ya’ll don’t have ‘nough sense to come outta the pouring rain.” He chuckled and shook his head, reaching for a can of Miller, draining the last few sips. “Ya’ll look like look like dizzy ducks out there. When I was a young man, I did that stuff. One more for the road, Miss Kimberly.” He turned around and stared at his reflection in the smoked-glass mirror behind the bar, his thoughts in the lost-and-found box of his youth.

  Kim walked behind the bar and reached for two white towels, tossing one to me. She dried her arms and face, her skin looking fresh-scrubbed, hair damp, smile radiant. “Sean, you want something to eat or drink?”

  I started to answer when the retired captain asked, “Kim, where’s your remote control for the TV? The news has a story on about Senator Logan’s visit to Florida.” Kim lifted the remote from the center of the bar and turned up the sound.

  A reporter stood in The Villages town square and said, “Republican front-runner, Senator Lloyd Logan seemed to make quite an impression on the crowd here today. He spoke of reigning in government spending and his five-point plan to balance the federal budget in three years.” The video cut to a sound bite with Senator Logan emphasizing his approach to fiscal spending, and then cut back to the reporter. “Senator Logan, of course, came to The Villages seeking support and a large campaign contribution. It’s believed that he received both. However, the Senator got something he wasn’t expecting. Apparently, almost the entire time Logan spoke and worked the crowd, his wife, Andrea Logan, was inside a nearby coffee shop working out something with an unidentified man. Video shot by a customer on his iPhone, video that’s going viral on the Internet, shows Andrea Logan crying as she’s talking with the man at a table. She reaches out and holds his hand for about thirty seconds, and then upon leaving, she is seen touching his cheek, kissing him on the cheek, and embracing him in a long hug just before her husband enters the coffee shop.”

  As the reporter talked, the story cut to video of Andrea and me at the table. Innocent as it was, the visuals, with no narration, looked suspicious at best, and at worst, it was like former lovers meeting and returning to a place and time where it all went away.

  The reporter concluded by saying, “No one in the Logan camp is saying what the coffee shop incident was all about. The mysterious tall man, with what one spectator called ‘movie star good looks,’ remains unidentified, something Logan’s Republican opponents for the nomination would, no doubt, like to know. From The Villages, this is Chris Bellum, Channel Three News.”

  Kim turned to me, eyes wide, face confused, disbelieving. “Sean, what was that? You’re in a Starbucks with the wife of Senator Logan bawling her eyes out and hanging onto you like you were her old boyfriend.”

  “I was.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a long story, Kim.” I glanced toward the captain at the bar, his mouth partially open, a can of Miller dripping condensation from his large, weather-scarred hand. “And it’s a private story.”

  “Private? Sean, it’s all over the news. The reporter said the video is going viral. You just got yourself in the middle of a nasty political campaign. For what? Senator Logan’s wife was your old girlfriend ... wow.”

  I said nothing, the sound of rain beating against the palm fronds outside.

  She said, “Look, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. It’s just so weird, so unexpected.”

  “I’d better go find Max.” I started for the door leading to the docks.

  “Sean …”

  I didn’t turn around. As I opened the door, I heard the old captain say, “Bet you don’t dance with him in the puddles again.”

  I stepped out into a soft rain, the marina drenched in a subdued bluish-gray world, the tops of sailboat masts lost in the mist. I turned my collar up and walked down the dock, watching the raindrops splatter off the creosote-stained wooden planks. The bowlines on the boats moaned, protesting the slow lift on the shoulders of a rising tide. I stepped through the cold rain toward Jupiter, which now felt a hundred miles away.

  26

  By the time it took me to walk to the end of Dock L, the rain was slacking. I stepped onto Nick’s boat, St. Michael, and tapped on the sliding-glass door between the cockpit and the salon. Nick opened the door, Max at his feet. “Sean, you picked a great time to take a stroll through the marina. C’mon inside. Lemme get you a towel.”

  Max sniffed my damp shoes, stared at me and cocked her head with a look that said: Don’t you have enough sense to get out of the rain? Then her tail danced. Nick tossed a towel to me. “You just gettin’ back from The Villages?”

  “I drove slowly. Had a lot to think about.” I dried off as my phone rang.

  Dave Collins said, “I saw an aberration board Nick’s boat. It looked a little bit like you, Sean. I just watched the story on Channel Three, hell it’s on the cable news networks, too. Stay put. If you feel up to talking about it, I’ll be right over.”

  “There’s not much to say.”

  “Then I won’t stay long.”

  Dave disconnected and I dropped my phone back in my pocket, bent down and picked up Max. She licked one side of my face and then stared through the glass door, watching Dave amble across the dock, an umbrella in one hand, a bottle of Jameson in the other.

  I set Max down and handed Nick the towel. He asked, “Want some dry clothes? You’re taller than me, but I got some sweats that ought to fit you.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be heading over to Jupiter in a few minutes.”

  Dave opened the door, closed the umbrella, and said, “Welcome back from the big V.” He stepped over to the salon bar and settled on one of the three stools. “Nick, can I trouble you for three glasses and some ice? I believe Sean could use a drink, and after he tells us why his meeting with the wife of Senator Lloyd Logan set her off into tears, followed by hugs and kisses, we might need a drink, too.”

  Nick reached for glasses and ice. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “The latest YouTube video to go viral, starring our good friend, Sean O’Brien. Sean, what the hell happened? You went to a political rally and caused a political firestorm.”

  Dave and Nick sipped the Irish whiskey as I told them the story. Neither saying a word until I had finished. Dave swirled the ice in his glass, looked out the window at the rain falling over the marina, and then cut his eyes to mine. “You think this daughter you conceived with the woman who might be the next first lady is Courtney Burke?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nick blew out a long breath. “Maybe Pandora’s Box won’t get completely opened and this’ll all blow over.”

  Dave said, “Pandora’s Box is open, and there’s no getting that prophetic genie back in the bottle. Sean, we’re your marina mates and the closest thing you have to a band of brothers, let’s assess the situation. Hypothetically, if Andrea tells her husband how she and you are connected, if they believe there is the possibility of Courtney Burke’s identity being related back to Andrea, there will be trouble, no doubt about it. Although Courtney is innocent until proven guilty, this is a presidential election year, and all bets are off the table of due process. Your background alone, even without the premise of a daughter between you and Andrea Logan, would be fodder for the media and Logan’s opponents. You have enough surreptitious baggage to keep Fox News and CNN speculating for days.”

  “Thanks, Dave.”

  He grunted. “This unfortunate chain of events might play out very poorly for Courtney. She�
�s hiding somewhere in a house of cards, and all it takes is some investigative reporter to connect the dots. What we know now is four people working in the carnival business have been killed. We don’t know if Courtney was in close proximity to the first two killings. She was definitely at the scene and may have been the source of the last two deaths, certainly the shooting of Tony Bandini. The FBI will intensify their investigation, should Courtney be connected to the Logans. The Secret Service will join the posse. In the meantime, local police are searching, and members of the Bandini family may be looking, too. By now, there might be a hit placed on the girl. And if, by sowing of the seeds of fate, Courtney is your daughter, Sean … even with your considerable skills and tenacity, how in the hell can you protect her?”

  “The best I can.”

  Dave nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “But I don’t know that she’s my daughter. Until a few hours ago, I didn’t know that I had a daughter. Adoption records were sealed. Andrea says she never knew the adoptive parents nor wanted to interfere with their parenting of the child. Right now the only tangible connection, the common familiarity, I have with Courtney is her awareness of my birthmark. How’d she know about it? How’d she know its symmetry to a four-leaf shamrock if Andrea didn’t tell her? If she didn’t, then who did?”

  Nick stood from his stool. “The only way to find that out is to track her down and ask her.”

  “And that’s what I’ll do.”

  “You will?” Nick’s dark eyebrows arched.

  “Yes, and I’ll need your help to start. I figure if I go to the carnival before it pulls out, I might find those guys you overheard talking in the bar. If you come with me, you can point them out. Saves time. Makes it simpler.”