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

by Lowe, Tom

  “Sounds like an interesting bunch.”

  He finished pumping gas, replaced the nozzle, and said, “Don’t want to mess in your business, I’m just warning you. These people are real damn clannish. They simply don’t talk to outsiders. Won’t answer their doors. It’s trailers and mansions. All of ‘em have paper covering their windows to keep prying eyes out.”

  “Thank you.”

  He removed his John Deere hat and wiped his rawboned face with a red handkerchief. “Gonna be a scorcher.” Then he got back in his truck and drove away, windows down, a rifle balanced in the gun rack visible through the dirty back window.

  There were no posted signs letting me know that I’d entered the town of Murphy Village. It was wasn’t needed. The farmer’s description wasn’t embellished. In truth, he’d restrained his account of what I was now seeing. The homes were a concoction of mansions and trailers tucked behind scrub pines and oaks. English Tudor, Mediterranean, all brick homes, sprouted like misplaced castles on an acreage of spotty lawns, fenced warehouses, cars on blocks, and bent mailboxes with no addresses. Every home had at least one pickup truck in the driveway, front facing the street. License plates not visible. It was a land of contrasts but not contradictions. Ostentatious symbols of wealth infused in a quilt of deficiency, a measurable history of a hardscrabble life.

  I saw no signs of life. No moms pushing babies in strollers. No dogs. No one watering dry lawns. Nothing. I did see what appeared to be cream-colored construction paper inside each window in every home facing the street. I looked at the house number Dave had given me and wondered how I’d find a residence in a sprawling neighborhood barren of visible addresses.

  I glanced up in my rearview mirror and saw a mail truck coming my way. The postman stopped in front of mailboxes, delivering, and moving on down his route. I pulled to the side of the road and waited. When he stopped at the box behind my Jeep, I got out, and walked to his truck. I offered my most convincing smile said, “You must be clairvoyant or you’ve worked this neighborhood for a long time. I’m having the hardest time finding addresses. Who would have thought that delivering a birthday gift would be such a challenge? I had an easier time finding addresses in Iraq.”

  He looked over the top of his bifocals, his round face red from the heat, his walrus moustache damp with perspiration. “You fought in the Gulf War?”

  “Yeah, a lifetime ago.”

  “Thank you for your service.”

  “You’re welcome. How do you deliver the mail out here?”

  “Been doin’ it eighteen years now. It’s kind of easy because hardly anybody moves in or out. Same families for years. All Irish. Lots of Callaghan’s and whatnot.”

  “Maybe you can help me. I’m trying to deliver a package to eight-ten Murphy Road. I can find the road, but I have no clue which house it is, and I’d hate to not deliver her birthday gift.”

  “I didn’t know it was Miss O’Sullivan’s birthday. She’s one of the few people here who I’ve actually gotten to know some. I just delivered the mail to her box. Didn’t notice any cards. Too bad. She’s a nice woman. Sort of a recluse, like all of ‘em. But she always has something pleasant to say if I deliver a larger box to her trailer.”

  “Trailer?”

  “Yes. She is from an old Irish clan. Some of them in here speak ancient Gaelic and other Irish brogues. I’d heard she lost her only daughter. Murdered. They never caught the killer. News said it might even have been Miss O’Sullivan’s own granddaughter—the daughter of the woman who was killed. I need to get going. I hope you can deliver the present. She strikes me as a woman who hasn’t had much to smile about for a long time.”

  “Where’s she live?”

  “Oh, you passed it. Back down Murphy, about a half mile on the left. It’s the poorer section, no mansion out front. She lives in a light blue trailer back up in the trees. There is a hand-painted picture of a funny looking bird on her mailbox.” He nodded, took his foot off the brake, and drove down to the next mailbox.

  I turned the Jeep around and drove in the direction he’d given me, hoping that Katherine O’Sullivan was home, hoping that what she might say could be the connection to Courtney Burke’s past, and be the bridge over her troubled waters to a better future.

  69

  I remembered something Dave Collins said to me when Nick and I hooked an old German U-boat on our anchor rope while fishing in the Atlantic. Its cargo had been weapons-grade uranium. Dave had talked about a scene in a Hitchcock film, Spellbound, a dream sequence in which eyes were everywhere. The art director in the film had been Salvador Dali. Dave had said just because I couldn’t see their eyes didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched.

  That’s what I felt like at the moment.

  Watched. Followed by unseen eyes in a Stepford Wives illusion of idyllic calm that was a prelude to a storm. I stopped in front of a light brown mailbox, a small, hand painted image of a bird on it. I recognized the species—a puffin. It resembled a cousin to a penguin, black and white tuxedo-like feathers, yellow webbed feet, and an orange and black beak. Whoever had painted it on the mailbox was very talented.

  I looked up the driveway, a trailer barely visible through the trees and low-hanging branches. As I backed up to turn into the drive, a man in a white pickup truck drove slowly by me. He braked to a crawl. Watched to see what I was doing, his eyes hard as lug nuts. Then he lifted his mobile phone and drove down the road.

  I put the Jeep in gear, intuitively touching my Glock between the seat and console. After more than two-hundred feet, I came to a clearing, a trailer in the middle surrounded by trees. There were no cars. But there were signs of life. Red and white flowers filled clay pots, purple and yellow bougainvillea climbed terraces, and pink impatiens lined pine mulch beds tucked in deep shade from the trees. A bench swing sat motionless under the shade from a tall cottonwood tree. The warm air smelled of fresh-cut hay and heather. The breeze picked up and the tree released its seeds, floating through the air like white, down-feathered snowflakes.

  I walked to the front door and knocked. Wind chimes tinkled and somewhere in the trees a mourning dove cooed a succession of somber cries. I could hear the subdued sounds of someone moving about the trailer, making an effort to be quiet.

  I knocked again. Then I spoke up, loud enough to be heard but tactful enough to not sound threatening. “Miss O’Sullivan, my name is Sean O’Brien. The only reason I’m here, ma’am, is because of your granddaughter. Courtney’s in very serious trouble, and you may be the only person left on earth who can help her now.”

  I waited. The mourning dove cooing, cottonwood snow falling on my shoulders. And then I heard a series of locks turning, finally the door opening a crack. Sunlight fell on the face of an old woman. She looked up at me. Her eyes reminded me of Courtney’s eyes, but paler, tired eyes. Her cheek bones were prominent, and I could tell she must have been striking as a younger woman. She coughed into a handkerchief, a deep raspy sound in her lungs. She glanced down at the handkerchief and said, “Sean O’Brien.” She spoke with an Irish accent.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your name?

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Courtney?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s on the run. Her life’s in grave danger. Is she your biological granddaughter?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because if she is … it means she’s not the biological daughter of the woman who may be the next first lady in the White House. Have you been following the news?”

  “Mr. O’Brien, I don’t have a TV, don’t take the paper anymore. I’m rather isolated. Friends here drive me to the doctor now and then, but I don’t get out much anymore.”

  “May I come in?”

  She looked over my shoulder, opened the door, and stepped back. Her eyes seemed to take all of me in at once. “Come in, please.”

  I followed her inside the trailer. It was neat and clean, furniture at least twenty years old. Framed paintings hung on muc
h of the wall space. There was no television in the living room, but lots of bookcases filled with books. The only photographs I could see were on an end table next to the couch. Courtney Burke, as a younger teenager, was in one picture. Next to it was a photograph of a middle-aged woman—a woman who resembled Courtney.

  There were two pictures of babies, one older than the other. And there was a photograph of a man standing next to a woman. They stood by the sea, the wind in the woman’s hair, a wide smile on her face. The man had his arm around her waist. He was smiling, his hair dark, eyes piercing.

  She said, “Please, sit down.” Then she simply stared at me, her thoughts someplace else.

  “Miss O’Sullivan …”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you Courtney’s biological grandmother?”

  “Yes.” She cut her eyes down to the photographs, and then looked back up at me.

  “Is that her mother in the picture?”

  “Yes, she was my only daughter, Sarah. She was murdered.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that. Where is Courtney’s father?”

  “He was murdered alongside Sarah. I raised Courtney the last few years of her life.”

  “Do you know where she is right now?”

  “No.” Her eyes studied my face. She asked, “Are you hungry? I made meatloaf and seasoned potatoes.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Where’s your home?”

  “Florida.”

  “Is that where your parents live, too?”

  “They were killed in a car crash when I was a teenager. Miss O’Sullivan … we need to find Courtney. You’ll have to let the police know her real identity.”

  “Yes … of course … just tell me how I can help.” She looked at one of the babies in the pictures then slowly cut her eyes back up to me. Her face was suddenly reflective, private thoughts filling eyes that had grown softer. She fidgeted with a wedding ring on her left hand.

  “Miss O’Sullivan, Courtney knew that I had a birthmark that resembled an Irish shamrock. How do you think she knew that?”

  “Courtney has a gift. She can see things … things most others can’t. When she told me that you looked similar to my husband, told me your age, the fact you wore an ancient Irish triquetra pendent from a chain on your neck … I knew. I gave that triquetra to my cousin to give to you when you turned eighteen. My cousin and her husband were childless. They raised you as their own, and they swore absolute secrecy as a condition of the adoption. I insisted that it remain that way because I couldn’t have withstood the pain in my heart of seeing you and not taking you back. Courtney knew you had the birthmark because I told her.”

  My heart hammered in my chest.

  She spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s on your left shoulder. A perfect shamrock.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I am your mother, Sean.”

  70

  The trailer seemed hot. I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. I could feel the blood surging through my temples, the drone of the mourning dove coming in the open window.

  She said, “I used to think the little birthmark was painted on you in my womb by the very hand of God. One leaf for the Father. One for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit. The fourth, representing temptation, to remind you always how important the first three are in your life.”

  “How could you be my mother?”

  She lifted the framed picture of the woman and man standing by the sea and handed it to me. “That’s my husband, the year we were married in Ireland. He’s your father.”

  “What?” I stared at the man in the picture. There was no denying that I bore a strong resemblance to him. “This isn’t possible.”

  “Yes, it is. His name was Peter Flanagan. You were born Sean Flanagan. My married name was Kate Flanagan. What seems impossible is that I have found you after all of these years. I had to give you up when you were a baby. And I’ve regretted it every day of my life. Please, come, sit beside me.”

  I moved to the couch and sat next to her. She lifted up another picture, the one of the two babies. She handed it to me and said, “This is you, Sean … the baby on the right. You were less than a year old. I’d left Ireland soon after your father died. The Catholic Church paid for my transportation. I came to South Boston because I had an aunt there. I had three little children at the time, you, your younger sister and your older brother. We lived from hand-to-mouth … poverty. It was only a matter of time before the county would take my babies from me and place them in foster homes. I couldn’t afford to raise you by myself.” She paused, her eyes welling with tears, voice cracking.

  “It’s okay. Take your time. I need to hear this.”

  She nodded. “You were the child I chose to be raised outside of there and here, Murphy Village. I felt in my heart you had such promise, and that’s why I gave you up for adoption when you were a baby. I came to South Carolina with my aunt and her husband. Her husband was born an Irish traveler. Later on, he taught your brother, Dillon, the ways of the travelers. Taught him no good, evil ways. I eventually remarried to a man named James O’Sullivan. He was part of the clan here—it’s something you marry into if you’re not from here. One summer my husband, James, left with rest of them, but he never came home. That’s been more than twenty years. He was shot by police in a robbery.”

  “What happened to Dillon?”

  “He left home, the first time when he was seventeen. Then he’d come back, looking for money. He’d work a summer on the road with the other men, and he’d drift away again. He worked carnivals and county fairs, always conning people. He got into drugs, pills and alcohol. One summer he came back. The drugs brought out the core of evil in him. On a Sunday night, during an awful thunderstorm, he strangled your sister and stabbed her husband with an ice pick. Police say Sarah had been raped. Poor little Courtney had seen it all, but she’d been too traumatized to tell anyone, even me, until a few years later. Dillon was long gone.”

  “Why did the Catholic Church pay your way over here?”

  “Because I was raped by one of their priests.” She lifted the photograph of the other baby boy. “This is your brother, Dillon. I became pregnant with him after the rape. I’d kept if from your father until after your sister was born. All three of you were a year apart between your births.”

  “How did the man in the picture die?”

  She was silent for a few seconds, staring at the smiling and strong image of her husband. “He was shot in the back. He’d gone to confront the priest. I’d begged him not to go.”

  “How’d he find out the baby wasn’t his?”

  “Dillon was so different in appearance and personality—very moody and prone to viciousness. And he had a striking resemblance to the priest. I finally told your father. I had to. I loved him too much to continue hiding it from him. Your father was a quiet man until someone threatened his family.”

  “Did this priest kill him?”

  “Police couldn’t prove it. Father Garvey was an important figure in the County Kerry. He was very charismatic, had lots of friends, and the church was very powerful at the time. When I told the bishop what had happened to me, he tried to make it seem like I was at fault and it may have happened at a weak time in Father Garvey’s life. All they did was transfer him to another parish.” She coughed into a napkin, a wet, rasping hack coming from her lungs.

  “Are you sick?”

  She managed a slight smile. “I’m okay. Right now, I’m better than I’ve been in years. I’ve found my son. You’re so handsome. Please, tell me about your life. Are you married? Do I have other grandchildren?” She smiled and brushed a strand of white hair behind her ear.

  “I was married. Almost thirteen years. Sherri, my wife, died three years ago from ovarian cancer. When she became ill, we didn’t talk about having children anymore. And that hurt her maybe more than the cancer. She really wanted kids. I have a dog.”

  “I am so very sorry to hear about yo
ur wife’s death.” She paused and asked, “What kind of dog do you have?”

  “A little dachshund. Her name’s Maxine. Max for short.”

  “I bet she’s precious. Courtney said you stay on an old boat sometimes. Is that your home?”

  “I have a cabin on the St. Johns River in Florida. I used to be a police detective. I did that after I left the military. Now I teach some criminology courses at a local college and do an occasional charter fishing job.”

  “Are you happy, Sean?”

  “I’m content.”

  She nodded and lowered her eyes. I could tell she was in pain. She touched my hand. “I want you to know you were never not loved, Sean. It was because of my love, a mother’s love so deep, so unconditional, that I did what I thought was best for you. I knew you’d receive a good education, have a good upbringing, and be loved in Celeste and Michael’s home. And you were. I’m so grateful and blessed that they lived long enough to see what a fine young man you turned out to be under their loving guidance.”

  “They were good parents … but I wish they’d told me about you. All the missing birthdays, Mother’s Days, the times we never had together.”

  “I believe in my heart-of-hearts it was better for you to have one set of parents. And this Irish traveler’s life is no place to raise a child. Look what happened to your sister, to your niece Courtney … and to your brother.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I’d heard he left the carnival work and formed some kind of cult following, acting like he was a prophet. There are some people here in the village who know where he is. They follow him. They talk with him. But they don’t give details. Even before you knocked on my door, I know one of them let Dillon know I had a visitor. Through the years, I discovered he stays in touch with only one person.”

  “Who?”

  “His father, the man who raped me … Father Thomas Garvey.”

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