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

by Lowe, Tom

  “Safer? They’d find a way to kill me in jail. One thing my uncle knows is who I am and where I come from. Maybe he’ll admit it before …”

  “Before what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If you kill him, you become him.”

  “No, I don’t. I may be part of his blood, but I’m not part of his soul.” She tossed the last of the bread to the ducks.

  “My brother, Isaac, mentioned the Shamrock birthmark that you said is on this man … Sean O’Brien’s shoulder. How’d you know? What does it mean for you?”

  She turned towards Boots. “If my life’s in danger from those powerful people, it’s best I don’t tell you. Because if you know, then your life might be in danger, too. And I don’t want that to happen. You and Isaac have been so kind to me. I would never forgive myself if something bad happened to either of you because of me.”

  “No worries. Oh, I almost forgot. This package came for you.”

  She nodded and opened the small package. She unwrapped a slim cell phone. “This came from my grandma.” She looked over his shoulder, her eyes far away.

  “What is it Courtney?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Wait until daybreak. It’ll be safer to travel. You can take my old Toyota truck.”

  “I’m not sure I can wait that long, Boots.”

  44

  On the way back to the Ponce Marina, I called Dave and asked him to take the Zodiac and meet me at a remote dock away from the Tiki Bar parking lot and the main entrance to the private docks. I parked my Jeep behind a boatyard storage building, away from the central public areas. I walked about one hundred feet to the dock used for hauling boats out of the water. Deep in thought, I waited for Dave to motor up to the dock. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number. I answered.

  The woman said, “Sean?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Andrea.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask you how you’re doing. I can only imagine.”

  “It’s been very difficult. I shouldn’t be calling you, but I had to.”

  I said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

  She exhaled a pent-up breath into the phone. “I overheard Lloyd and two of his top advisors talking. I was in the next room on the campaign bus and heard them say things that frightened me.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “It’s about this girl … Courtney. Do you really think she’s our daughter?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Regardless, whoever she is, she’s someone’s daughter. I heard Robert Cairo, the man who will be chief of staff if Lloyd wins the election, say, and I’m quoting here, ‘there’s no way in hell that the girl can ever be tied to us. She must be found and removed.’ Sean, he said it like he was talking about pulling weeds in a garden. And the worst part is that Lloyd said if that’s the way it has to be, then for the good of the nation as a whole, we have to take certain uncomfortable risks. I had to call you. Do you know where to find her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Please try. I truly believe she’ll be safe only if she’s in kept the public eye, visible but protected by law enforcement or the courts.”

  “I’ll do my best to find her.”

  “Thank you. God, I’m so very sorry this has happened. I have to go, Sean, someone’s coming down the hall.”

  I looked across the marina, through the sea of bobbing boats. To the far right in the distance were satellite news trucks, microwave antennas rising up from other trucks, TV lights blazing. I could see reporters conducting interviews with boat owners, barflies, anyone who might shed a better theory on what he or she did or didn’t know about me or even Courtney Burke. I hoped the media were leaving Kim Davis alone. I called her.

  “Sean, where are you?”

  “Close, but not that close.”

  “Stay wherever you are. I’ve never seen anything like this. The marina hired off-duty deputies to enforce the private property rules. Still, Dave Collins told me he ran off two of them who were taking video of your boat. Dave’s been keeping an eye on Nick and Max. Wherever you are, Sean, let me help you if I can. I can take Max to my house. I can bring you guys groceries, whatever you need, okay?”

  “Thank you. I might go back to my place on the river for a while.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I can deliver there, too.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I appreciate it.”

  “Before you go, all these reporters and airheads on the cable news stations are talking about is Courtney Burke and whether she’s a natural born killer, and what will happen to the presidential election if she is. They’re speculating how, if she’s Andrea Logan’s daughter, how Andrea—a mother—must feel. Nobody’s saying anything about how you might be feeling as the father. I just want you to know I care, your friends care, and we’re all thinking about you.”

  “Thank you, Kim. I have to go.”

  “Be careful.” She disconnected. I stood there, on the dock, in deep thought. I watched three white pelicans sail over the sailboat masts, over the mangroves between the marina and the Halifax River, and turn east to Ponce Inlet and the Atlantic Ocean. I thought about what Andrea had told me. And I thought about Courtney. I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling the number I’d memorized from Isaac Solminski’s phone. Then I made the call.

  One ring. Come on, Courtney, pick up. Answer the damn phone. After the fourth ring, a man said, “Hello.” His voice was high. It had some of the tonal qualities I heard in Isaac’s voice.

  “May I speak with Courtney?”

  There was a short pause. Even through a mobile phone I could detect it—the hesitancy that comes with knowledge of a hallowed subject, but not prepared to respond to questions about it. He said, “There isn’t anyone here by that name. Goodbye—”

  “Wait! Before you hang up, listen, please. My name’s Sean O’Brien. I’m a friend of Courtney’s and—”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I must go—”

  “Please … just hear me out for thirty seconds. I got your number from Isaac Solminski. Maybe you’re related to him. It doesn’t matter. What matters is saving Courtney’s life. If she’s there, please let me speak with her. If she’s not, can you get a message to her?”

  “We have no one here by that name.”

  “If you see her, please tell her to call Detective Dan Grant with the Volusia County Sheriff’s department. We’re getting more evidence that will clear her in the killing of Lonnie Ebert. She has to stop running because she can’t be protected if she’s in hiding.”

  “Protected from what?”

  “From people who will kill her.”

  There was another long pause. In the background, I could hear a dog barking and a train whistle. He said, “Okay. What’s her last name?”

  “Burke, Courtney Burke.”

  “No problem. If a Courtney Burke arrives, I’ll give her the message to get in touch with Detective Grant at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Good bye—”

  “Where are you located? I can help her.” He disconnected. I went online and looked up his phone number, looking for an ID. There was no public record of the number. I squeezed the mobile phone so hard I thought it would break.

  I glanced up to see Dave Collins approaching in the Zodiac, the small rubber boat creating a V trail across water painted in shades of purple, cherry, and merlot reflecting off clouds drenched in the colors of a sunset.

  But his face mirrored the opposite of twilight serenity. With his seasoned years in covert intelligence, even from a few yards away, I could tell the uneasy look on his face forecast a bad storm on the horizon.

  45

  By the time we’d crossed the marina in the Zodiac, darkness was creeping over the boats like a dark tide. The smell of sautéed garlic shrimp drifted from the deck of a Grand Banks trawler tied to the dock, while the pulse of reggae, Bob Marley’s One Love came from a houseboat lit with multi-colored Japanese lantern
s. We quietly boarded Nick’s boat, St. Michael, keeping low, staying in the shadows, watchful of security cameras and prying eyes, neighbors and news media.

  Nick greeted us with a crooked grin, his face still swollen. The swelling around his eye had gone down some. His hand was wrapped in a large, white bandage, his shirt unbuttoned, ribs supported with a flesh-colored binding. He sat on his couch and sipped a micro-brew from a bottle, Max beside him. She jumped off and trotted over to us, tail animated.

  Nick lifted his bottle. “Sean, where the hell have you been? Hotdog and I were getting a little worried.”

  “Just trying to take care of a little business.”

  “Man, looks like all those reporters want to make your business everybody’s business. They’re like gnats around a dock light.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Good. I decided to stop the meds and replace ‘em with cold beer.” He looked at the bandage on my arm. “What happened to you?”

  “Just a scrape. I’m glad he used an icepick rather than a real knife or he’d have cut me to the bone.”

  Nick’s eyes widened. He sat up on the couch. “Did you find the guy who did this to me?”

  “Yeah, I found him.”

  Dave sat down at the three-stool bar and poured a Grey Goose over ice. He sipped and motioned with his head towards the media in the parking lot. “In view of all this national, even international news coverage of, shall we call it, the situation, tell us you didn’t kill the guy.”

  “He’s alive, but his motorcycle is dead.” I told them about the chain of events at the Lone Wolf Saloon, and then I let them know what occurred on Carlos Bandini’s bus. Nick listened in pain and disbelief. Dave started his second cocktail in the five minutes it took me to tell them what had happened. I set my Glock on the coffee table and sat in the canvas deck chair.

  “Shit,” Nick said, pursing his lips to whistle, but it sounded like he was trying to blow up a balloon. “Sean, I know you saved my life a couple of years back when you pulled those guys off me. Man, we’re square, okay? You didn’t have to walk in a biker bar, by yourself, and kick the shit out that guy and blow up his bike in the parking lot, and do it in front of his BFF’s.” Nick shook his head and took a long pull from the bottle. “I gave up my meds too damn early.”

  Dave said, “I made a simple seafood bouillabaisse with some shrimp, redfish, tomatoes, onions, garlic and clams. Nick was shouting the Greek recipe to me at the stove. I’ll get you a bowl and a beer.”

  “Thanks.” I scratched Max behind her ears, her attention on Dave in the galley. Then I set her on the floor and she made a beeline to him. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Detective Dan Grant said, “I tried to reach you earlier.”

  “You didn’t leave a message.”

  “I usually don’t. I wanted to let you know that I’m not sure how the media got wind of the DNA sampling of you, Andrea Logan, and the fact that we’re searching for a sample from Courtney Burke.”

  I said nothing. Dave set the bowl of food and a Corona on the marine coffee table in front of me, lifting Max up and carrying her to the bar with him.

  Dan said, “The chain of evidence leaves me and goes through a number of people, Sean, including lab techs. You know that. Maybe someone read my report and was looking to make some money by selling the story to the media.”

  “That’s inexcusable, Dan. The perp should be found, fired and prosecuted. The leak to the media is placing lives in danger, especially the life of Courtney Burke, the woman the media are all labeling a suspected serial killer.”

  “My apologies, Sean, okay? This has never happened in the department before now. It’s only because of this unbelievable media coverage; someone got greedy.”

  “And dangerous.”

  “Speaking of danger, there was a report of a fight in the parking lot of the Lone Wolf Saloon, a hangout for the Outlaws and other biker types with about the same criminal IQ qualifications. The owner said someone assaulted a customer, no, he beat the living shit out of him. And then pinned him to a wooden deck with an icepick through the hand. Sounds like an eye-for-an-eye kind of retribution. And that wasn’t easy to do since they report the victim is six-six, two-ninety-five. Witnesses describe the perpetrator as a man with a resemblance to you. Whoever this guy was, he blew up the vic’s custom motorcycle, a bike some would kill for.”

  “Is the vic pressing charges?”

  “No, but if he does, do you have an alibi for your time?”

  “I was visiting with Carlos Bandini. You can ask him.”

  “Hey, Sean, let’s get something straight. Because you were once a cop, the fact that we have a past together on that psycho federal agent case, I grant you slack and some professional leeway. But you don’t have nine lives. Your law of averages is expiring, pal. And now you have all this shit with your former girlfriend—the wife of a presidential contender … and maybe a biological tie to a girl who could be your daughter. Every man has his breaking point.”

  “Can you run a phone number through your system?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hearing and listening aren’t the same. What’s the number?”

  I told him and said, “The area code, eight-one-three, covers Tampa and the surrounding area. Can you pinpoint it with a location, or a name?”

  “It depends. People are using everything from throw-away phones to Internet phones. It’s not as easy as it used to be when they had to always go through a carrier. I’ll call you back.”

  46

  Within twenty minutes, rain began falling across the marina, an Atlantic storm moving in from the west. Lightning illuminated the marina for a second, the crack of thunder almost immediate. Nick sauntered from the couch to a side window on St. Michael. He said, “Maybe the rains will wash away the reporters. Looks like most of them are splitting. Lightning has a way of doing that.”

  Dave chuckled. “They’ll be back.”

  I finished the plate of seafood and felt the knots between my shoulder blades begin to loosen a little. For a second, I thought of Kim Davis, her smile as I walked her in the rain to her car the other night. I sipped the Corona and said, “There are a couple of things I didn’t mention.”

  Nick returned to the couch, Max following him. He attempted a smile and said, “Don’t hold back now.”

  Dave nodded. “Tell us you found a DNA sample from Courtney.”

  “I wish, primarily for her sake, and Andrea’s too.”

  “Unless she’s your daughter, and this begins a whole new chapter that will make political history books.” Dave swirled the vodka around the ice in the glass.

  “Two guys, maybe federal agents, I don’t know for sure, but they weren’t connected to Bandini. They’d been following me for miles until I had breakfast at Denny’s where a server accidently spilled ice cold soda in their laps.”

  Dave said, “Serendipitous, no doubt. They probably weren’t federal agents, although Senator Logan has been assigned Secret Service protection. Logan and the Democrat’s candidate, Governor Les Connors, are raising tens of millions of dollars from the Super Pacs, donors who have anonymity and thus no responsibility. Analogous to the lack of culpability that one might find in the collective mentality of a lynch mob. Nevertheless, there is so much concealed money going into these campaigns, what’s a few hundred thou to hire mercenaries? It’s the cost of doing business in an election method where the vote, the majority will of the people, doesn’t always translate into a win.”

  “That’s essentially what Andrea Logan told me earlier on the phone.”

  Nick’s dark eyebrows arched. “Your old girlfriend has your number?”

  “Yes.” I looked over to Dave. “And she believes Courtney might never surface if her husband’s closest advisors can prevent it. She overheard a conversation to that effect, and she’s terrified.”

  Dave folded his brown arms over his thick chest. He leaned back on the stool and said,
“So a presidential candidate could be complicit in a murder on his way to the White House. His wife is indeed terrified for a lot of reasons, perhaps first is the real possibility that the young woman whose life is in danger may be her daughter.”

  I told them about my call to the person who answered the number I’d memorized from Isaac Solminski’s call history. “What intrigues me is not so much what he said, but what he didn’t say and how he phrased some things.”

  “What do you mean?” Dave asked.

  He said, ‘Although we have no one here by that name, if someone arrives with the name, Courtney, what message would you like for me to give to her?’ That sounds like he’s working in a hotel or a motel.”

  Nick said, “That narrows it down.”

  I said nothing, watching the rain against the salon window. My phone rang. Dan Grant said, “Sean, I have an approximate match for you on the number.”

  “What is it?”

  “It pinged off a cell tower near a small town south of Tampa called Gibsonton. It’s tied to an apparent fictitious name, Showtime Estates, associated with a post office box. You think the girl is somehow connected to wherever this number leads?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “From Isaac Solminski, the dwarf at Bandini’s carnival.”

  “Why’d he give it to you?”

  “He didn’t actually provide it. I happened to see it in his call history.”

  I heard Dan release a long exhale. “Gibsonton or Gibtown, from what I remember, is or was the winter home for circus and carnival people. An odd place off the Tamiami Trail. Maybe Solminski’s just touching base with old friends or a family member.”

  “Could be.”

  “Sounds like a long-shot to me, especially when we don’t have a physical address, no location.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  He was hesitant for a few seconds. “Be careful, Sean, remember what I told you about those nine lives. I personally believe you’ve used up eight and are working overtime on number nine. Talk to you.” He disconnected.