by Lowe, Tom
“What kind of power?”
“Grandma said it truly brought guidance and wisdom to its rightful owner. Since my grandfather found it, after its original owner was dead for centuries, and because he gave it to my grandmother, she was the rightful owner. A thief is not the owner. Grandma said it also brought a little bit of luck, along with the guidance. Something I could use a lot of right now.”
“Is that why you seek this torc—guidance and good fortune?”
“No, it’s not mine. I want to return it to my grandmother.”
“Who took it?”
“My uncle from hell. He killed my mother and father. She was his sister, and he left with the torc.”
“And police can’t find him?”
“The FBI was even looking for him at one time. He’s like a chameleon; he can blend in anywhere.”
“Do you think he sold it?”
“No, because it would be worth more to him wearing it on one of his wrists than it would be for him to sell it.” Courtney watched as two fireflies rose out of the grass and flew up into the boughs of the old oak, the light like small blinking lanterns in and around the leaves.
“This uncle of yours, did he work the carnival circuit?”
“Yes. He’s been spotted working as a hypnotist. He’s real good at taking volunteers out of the audience and hypnotizing them into doing stupid stuff, you know, making them strut like a chicken and crow like a rooster. People think it’s funny. I think it can be dangerous.”
“How so?”
“Because he’s a dangerous person … no … he’s an evil man. He’d think nothing about using his skills at hypnosis to make people do stuff that would benefit him.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Who knows? Maybe even rob banks for him.”
Boots slapped at a mosquito that alighted on his big toe, near the yellowed and curled toenail. “The human subconscious mind is a destination with a landscape as different as that person’s character and his or her hidden thoughts. Many in the business say people under hypnosis won’t do something that violates their code of ethics, such as commit a crime. Do you believe that?”
“No, not with somebody as immoral as my uncle. I believe he has the power to prey on the weak, to persuade them to do things they wouldn’t ever do under normal circumstances.”
“When’s the last time you saw your uncle?”
“It’s been more than four years. Between carnival gigs, he was a con-man preacher in a few backwater churches. He’s the opposite of Robin Hood. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, he takes from the poor and gives to himself.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Women like him, unfortunately. He’s got dark hair and handsome features. I think he’s about forty-four, maybe forty-five. He has thick eyebrows and eyes the color of a blue sky. Wears his hair combed straight back.”
Boots snatched a firefly from the air in his right hand, then cupped the firefly in both hands, the broken light seeping out between his short fingers. “This creature possesses the secret to cold light. The properties of light create heat, but not in this being.” He leaned closer to his hands, the light from the trapped insect caught in his eyes.
Courtney said, “Don’t hurt it. Let it go.”
“I shall. It will journey through the dark with its own light. You must travel through a dark world with an internal light, one from your heart. I think I know your uncle. Before I retired, I worked a summer circuit with Sun Amusements. They were looking for a new act. He showed up, as if from nowhere. He called himself the Illusionist. He drew in the crowds, night after night. Hypnotizing people from the audience with lightning fast speed. Even some of the carnies thought he worked with plants in the crowds. Not so. He was fired after he was found having sex with underage girls, girls he’d culled from the audiences and enticed them back to his trailer.”
“Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“Because none of the girls could actually remember having sex or being raped by him. His powers of hypnosis were that good. The carnival boss got rid of him to prevent big lawsuits and horrendous publicity. He left carnivals and began posing as an itinerant evangelist, traveling the country and calling himself the Prophet.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because a woman he left with, Mariah Danford, is a friend of mine. She traveled with him for a few weeks before escaping.”
“Escaping?”
“He’d held her against her will and started picking up other women, marrying them in some make-believe fashion, and either brainwashing them or keeping them under his control by hypnosis. He sells the women over and over as prostitutes. The Prophet was really the pimp.”
“Where is Mariah Danford?”
“New Orleans. I’ll give you her address and number. No guarantee that she’ll know where the Prophet is today, but she might. If she does know, what will you do?”
“I’ll find him.”
“Be very careful, Courtney. You stay in touch with me. This thing will work itself out, okay?”
Courtney smiled and kissed Boots on his cheek. “Okay.”
Boots opened his cupped hands, the firefly in the center of his palm. “Go little one,” he said. “Because you travel at night, darkness surrounds you. Don’t be afraid of the dark.” He turned to Courtney. “Be vigilant. Your journey will be most difficult. When will you go?”
“Soon.” Courtney watched the firefly crawl to the tip of Boots’ short index finger, open its wings and fly toward the creek. It flew over the sets of fiery red eyes on the surface, and then rose higher, flying with the guidance from a bright moon so far away, like a lighthouse on the edge of a dark sea.
35
It was after midnight when the news media filed their last salacious reports of the day, pulled out of Ponce Marina, and went to roost wherever vultures go at night. After the last satellite truck left, I walked Max across the marina and down an oyster-shell road leading to the beach. We could hear the breakers rolling across the dunes and beyond the sea oats, a high tide rising under the bright moonlight. I wondered where Courtney Burke was at this very moment. Was she in a safe place? If Isaac Solminski, the ‘Guesser,’ knew where she was, did Carlos Bandini believe Solminski could tell him? Would Bandini force him to talk?
Earlier in the evening, I’d looked in my coat pocket and found the handkerchief that I’d let Andrea Logan use to wipe her eyes. In the morning, I planned to call Detective Dan Grant to see if he’d run DNA tests on the samples in the handkerchief and my DNA, too. But now the immediate job was finding Courtney and getting a sample from her.
What if she is my daughter? I have no living family. The little dog walking at my feet is my sole dependent. I thought about what Nick said, his reference to Courtney resembling Andrea and me. And then I considered the message that Courtney had asked Isaac Solminski to give me. Did he get it right? Did he leave something out? If Andrea Logan was truthful, if she never had contact with the child after the adoption, how would Courtney know about the birthmark? What was the missing puzzle piece? How close was I to finding it? If I did find it, would it be in time to help a girl who might be my own flesh and blood?
I scooped Max up and walked over to one of the larger sand dunes facing the Atlantic Ocean. We sat and watched the breakers roll ashore across a deserted beach in the moonlight. The breeze blew in from the east, bringing the scent of saltwater and schooling fish leaping through the crashing waves.
Max uttered a low growl. Moments later, a sea turtle crawled from the rolling surf and slowly made her way up the beach, beyond the high tide line. “Shhh, it’s okay, Max. No barking.” We sat on the dune and watched the large turtle crawl to less than twenty-five feet from us.
She began using her back flippers to dig a hole in the soft sand. I knew she’d lay close to one hundred eggs, cover them up, and trudge back to the sea, never seeing her young. Maybe two or three turtles would survive out of the entire hatch to make it to adulthood. And if at
least one was a surviving female, she’d eventually return home, to this exact same beach years later to lay her eggs.
Courtney Burke was a survivor. But what did she have to return to? What warm memories did she have of her home? Were her parents adoptive or biological? Were they attentive or indifferent? If they were attentive, then how was she subjected to abuse? Or had one of them been the abuser? If Detective Dan Grant is right, if she’s a cold-blooded killer, when was the seed planted? And could I be partly to blame?
Enough.
Max and I watched as the green sea turtle began laying her eggs, her head turned toward the sea. I could see where the digging had flung loose sand against her head and face. Under the bright moonlight, it looked as if she was crying as she laid her eggs. I attributed the wet streaks coming from her eyes to the sand on her face, possibly in her eyes. Maybe I was wrong. All I knew at the moment was that Max and I shared a small plot of beach with a sea turtle, and perhaps, just somehow on this windswept, empty beach, we shared a link that was without biological boundaries.
***
Twenty minutes later, Max and I walked down the oyster-shell road and returned to the marina parking lot. I noticed a motorcycle in the lot that wasn’t there when we’d started our walk. Kim Davis’ white Honda was still parked, as was a second car I recognized, a Chevy owned by the Tiki Bar cook. But the Harley-Davidson wasn’t there at midnight. Now it was near 1:00 am. I made a mental note of the license plate number and the blue gas tank with a skull and crossbones painted on it.
The Tiki Bar door was locked, so I looked through the glass door and saw Kim doing paperwork at the bar, the cook sitting and nursing a cup of coffee. All the customers were gone. I tapped on the door. Kim looked up, smiled, and walked over to open the door. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her caramel eyes still animated after the end of a shift. “Did Max find you or did you find her, or are you both out for a midnight stroll?” She grinned and let us inside.
We followed her to the bar where the cook sat, shoulders slouched, his eyes heavy, white T-shirt blotched with food stains. He looked up at Kim and said, “I’m heading out. See you tomorrow night.”
“Goodnight, Bobby.” Kim turned to Max as the cook left and said, “Sorry, Miss Max, all the food’s gone for the night. Will you take a rain check?” Max sat on the wooden floor near a barstool and cocked her head, her nostrils in seek ‘n eat mode. “So, Sean, what brings you here a half-hour beyond closing time?” Kim reached in the cooler and popped the tops on two bottles of Corona, setting one in front of me, the other she held up and said, “To you Sean, you helped the Tiki Bar have its best business day ever. Those reporters eat as much as they talk.”
“I’m not so sure that bringing that business to the Tiki Bar is something I’d want to raise a glass to, but I will take the beer. Thank you. We couldn’t sleep, so Max and I went for a walk along the beach.”
“You have every right to be sleepless in Daytona. Your face is all over the news. Those so-called reporters are saying you and the wife of Senator Lloyd Logan had a child together. The whole Republican presidential primary election is turning upside down. Can imagine you’d have some restless nights. Sean, we have a history together and you know I’d never do anything to violate your privacy, but tonight it looks like you could use a friend.”
I smiled and sipped the cold beer.
She said, “I feel really bad for you. It has nothing to do with Senator Logan’s presidential campaign. It has to do with the daughter you never knew you had. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“Who’s to say what wasn’t fair? I don’t blame Andrea Logan. We were both kids, twenty-something. She was scared. She could have aborted, but she chose not to. And I know it wasn’t easy for her to give the baby up.”
She was quiet a moment. I heard the motorcycle in the lot start and pull away. “Sean, I don’t want to pry, but that girl, the one who came into the Tiki Bar and asked me for directions to your boat, the girl police are hunting for … is she your daughter?”
“I don’t know. She was walking on County Road 314 late at night when I found her. So it’s not as if she was looking for me. She wasn’t some kid trying to reconnect with a father she never knew. Maybe it’s purely by chance.”
“I remember you telling me, when you were a detective, you didn’t believe in coincidences.”
“When it came to crime, I didn’t. In the cycles of life, maybe.”
“But we’re talking about crime here, too, right? She’s wanted for killing those men at the fairgrounds.”
“She’s wanted for questioning in their deaths.”
“But you don’t think she did it, right? Is it because of what Nick overheard from those two drunk carny workers that night?”
“That’s part of it. It’s also the way Courtney Burke responded from the first night I saw her until the last time I saw her. Just a feeling in my gut.”
“Or maybe your heart.”
“Maybe. She knew about a tiny birthmark on my shoulder. It looks like an Irish shamrock, a four-leaf clover. Andrea used to call it God’s tattoo. But how did Courtney know?”
“Someone told her.”
“No doubt, but who? It’s not common knowledge even among my friends.”
She smiled and sipped her beer. “I’ve seen you without your shirt, at least from a distance, as you worked on your boat. I’ve never seen your birthmark up close. Are you going to find the girl?”
“I’ll try.”
“If anybody can, it’s you.”
“Thanks for the beer, Kim.”
She reached across the bar and touched the top of my hand. “Hey, I’m here, Sean. Anytime, okay? Get some sleep. If Courtney is your daughter, I’m sure it’ll all work out. I need to get going. My dog, Thor, has been home alone for almost ten hours.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes I do.”
She smiled and titled her head slightly, pulling a strand of hair behind her left ear. “Okay, that’d be nice.”
She turned the lights off behind the bar and the three of us walked to the entrance door, Max following at our heels. After locking the door, we walked across the crushed oyster shell parking lot to her car. She used her remote key to unlock the car door. She turned back to me, the moonlight falling softly on her hair, the sound of the breakers in the distance. “Thank you, Sean, for the escort. Maybe one day Max can meet Thor.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I think they’d get along well.”
“I bet they would.”
She watched the light rotate from Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, its beam touching the edge of the Atlantic. Then she looked up at me, her brown eyes elusive, inviting. “Can I give you a hug before I leave?”
I leaned down and she hugged me, Kim’s hands flat against my back, their warmth penetrating my shirt. She leaned in, kissed me on the cheek and said, “You’re a good man, Sean O’Brien. I hope all of this you’re going through works out, and I believe it will.”
“Thank you. Goodnight, Kim.”
She smiled and turned to get in her car. Max and I stood there, watching the red taillights fade into the darkness.
***
We walked down L Dock, Max sniffing the nocturnal smells, the glow from the security lamps chasing moving shadows between the tied-down boats rocking in the changing tide and soft breeze. From the next dock, I could hear the slap of a halyard against a metal sailboat mast, bowlines groaning in the night air.
Then there was a moan not produced by straining ropes pulling against a tide. It was human. Painful. And it was coming from St. Michael. Nick’s boat.
36
My mind made the mental leap before I could physically get to him. Be alive. Nick was lying in St. Michael’s cockpit, his back leaning against the exterior wall of the salon. One arm was pulled near his slumped head, his hand somehow propped on the wall. I ran hard and jumped from the dock into the center
of the cockpit.
Be alive. I looked at his face, bleeding from the nose, right eye swollen shut. He was unconscious. His left hand was cocked at an awkward angle, just above his head. An icepick was through his palm, the icepick embedded into the marine plywood. Blood trickled down the white exterior marine board, running over his neck and seeing into his white T-shirt. I felt for a pulse. It was there. Slow. Strong.
“Nick, hold on buddy.” No response. I reached for the icepick and pulled it out of the wood. I held Nick’s hand higher than his heart, checking for signs of other wounds, looking for additional bleeding. Nothing. I wiped blood out of his right eye. He groaned, tried to open the eye. “It’s okay, Nick. Stay still. I’ll call paramedics.”
“No,” he coughed. “Gonna be okay.” Another raspy cough. “It’s just my head and hand. No broken bones or busted ribs. Let’s keep the police outta this one.” He looked up at me, forced a smile, his teeth red from blood, the white of his swollen eye the color of ripe strawberries.
“You need medical attention. You need a tetanus shot.”
“I need to lie down. You worry too much, Sean.”
I reached for my phone and called Dave. Max paced the dock, a slight whimper in her throat. Three rings, no answer. On the seventh ring his voice grumbled through the comatose vocal cords. “Sean … what’s going on?”
“Nick’s been hurt.”
“What? Where?”
“His boat.”
“Be right there.”
Within a half minute, Dave sprinted across the dock from his boat. His T-shirt was on backwards, his face filled with worry. “What the hell happened? How bad is he?”
“No indication of broken bones. Looks like his face took the brunt of the beating. Whoever did it impaled that icepick through Nick’s hand and pinned it to the wall.”
“The bastards … who did this?” Dave knelt down and braced Nick’s face in his hands. “We need to get you to an emergency room, Nicky.”
“No … I’ll survive. I’m a little behind on my health insurance payments.”