"When is the lease up?" Parker asked.
"End of the year."
"Then you've got better than three months to figure something out, is the way I see it," CJ said. "Technically, this is hers until then."
"There is still the monthly rent."
"And when is that due?"
"First of the month."
"Then this is Ms. Danohough residence for the next three weeks. Thank you for letting us in," Parker said. "We'll return the key when we're finished."
With a huff, the manager turned and walked off.
"So," Stella said. "What are we looking for?"
CJ looked over at the corner of the living room where a small desk stood with a closed laptop computer and a printer. A wooden, two-drawer file cabinet sat to the right. He pointed. "I'll start there. Why don't you go through her bedroom, look for a journal or scrapbook. It might be something she'd secure in a more personal space, such as an underwear drawer. Look in any boxes in her closet."
"I get the picture."
She headed off and CJ opened one of the file drawers.
"Clint," Stella called.
He walked down the hall to where she stood in the bedroom doorway.
"I don't know if I can do this," she said.
He looked past her to the splatter of blood and brain matter on the bed and wall. "Why don't I do this part?" he said. "You go do the desk."
She turned around and put her hand on his chest. "Thank you." She took a couple of steps toward the living room and then stopped and turned to CJ. "One thing, Clint. You'd be looking for a diary, not a journal."
"What's the difference?"
"A diary is more personal. Thrust me. If there's a journal, it would likely be out here and have to do with her business. The diary would be in her bedroom and would contain her love life and secret ambitions."
"Would a woman her age keep a diary?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. In any case she likely had one when she was a teen or young woman. There's no way she'd discard it, even after this many years and I can guarantee that his name and the birth of her baby would be in it."
With that she headed on to the living room where CJ knew Parker was already opening doors on the entertainment center. He was going to search that and then the kitchen.
Ignoring the blood and gore, keeping his head down and his eyes focused, CJ started with the bedside table, finding only tissues and pharmaceutical items in the top drawer, books and magazines in the bottom. Nothing that looked like a diary. The closet contained the expected clothing plus two file boxes and four plastic hat boxes. He opened them all and found tax and financial records and a variety of women's hats.
He closed the closet door and stood in the middle of the room, feeling the ache in his ribs and shoulder from the exertion. He kept his back to the gore around the bed. He didn't want to look at it any more than Stella did, recalled dumping his stomach the day they found Danohough's body. His stomach rolled a bit at the memory.
He looked at the dresser and then got down on his hands and knees and peeked under the bed. There were a couple of plastic storage boxes, the slide-under-the-bed kind. He pulled them out and discovered only winter clothes; wondered how often they got used in Florida. About as often as in Southern Arizona, he figured. He pushed them back, stood and approached the dresser.
And then he hit pay dirt. In the back of the underwear drawer, the third drawer he'd opened, he discovered three bundles of letters and a used-to-be-white diary with a broken lock. He pulled the things out and went through the rest of the dresser, finding nothing more. He then carried them into the living room and dropped them onto the kitchen table.
"I think I've found it," he said. In seconds they were all sitting at the table.
"I've found nothing," Stella said.
"My neither," Parker said.
"What should we start with?" CJ asked.
"Let's look at the postmark dates on the letters," Stella said.
Each of them took a stack, removing rubber bands and looking at postmarks.
"The oldest I have is March of 1972," Parker said.
"I have..." Stella flipped through a couple, squinting at smeared ink. "I think this is October of 1969."
"CJ looked at his. I've got 1978. I think you've got the prize, Stella."
CJ and Parker bent toward Stella to get a look at the 1969 envelope.
"I can't read it," Parker said.
"I think it's addressed to Éibhleann O'Donoghue."
CJ took the envelope from her and looked at it closer. "You pronounced it wrong," he said. "The e-i-b-h is pronounced ave, not eeb. The last part is lin, not le-ann. Together it would be Ave-lin."
"And you know this... how?"
CJ thought about his conversation with Special Agent Coulter when they were transporting him to the FBI field office the day he'd arrived in St. Petersburg. "I'll tell you later. Trust me for right now. That's the pronunciation. She obviously changed her name when she came to the United States. It's not a stretch from Éibhleann O'Donoghue to Eveleen Danohough. The name she used on the birth certificate, by-the-way, was Éibhleann Ó Caiside. She used her actual first name but a false last name."
"You sure you don't want to fill us in on how you're so smart on this?"
"Let me bask in my brilliance for a while." He pointed to the scribbled return address. "So, who is this?"
Michael O.
Lisburn
Co. Down
"Sure doesn't look like Eddie Hall, that's for sure," Parker said.
"Can't disagree there."
"And what about this?" Stella said, pointing to the addressee.
Éibhleann O'Donoghue
Droichead Nua
Co. Kildare
"And what is Droichead Nua?"
"No idea. Look it up on your iPad."
She pulled out the iPad and after a minute or so said, "It's the Irish name for Newbridge, a town in the county of Kildare in Ireland; not Northern Ireland." She looked down through the stacks of letters. "All of these are from Michael O of Lisburn." She entered Lisburn into the search box. "It's in Northern Ireland, southwest of Belfast. This stack spans about four years it appears."
"And that's where my stack picks up," Parker said. "Most say Michael O as well, though some are just Michael."
"Same here," CJ said. "He remains in Lisburn until May 25 of 1981. The return just says Michael. No town or county. That's the last one."
"What's the postmark say?"
CJ turned the envelope and then said, "I think it's Ballycastle. Where is that?"
Stella entered it in the search box. "Northern Ireland," she said after a time. "On the northern coast, if that's important. So, what does it all mean?"
"Two months after the Battle of the Bogside, during which Douglas was born and given the name Douglas O'Reilly, Danohough, then O'Donoghue, began correspondence with a man by the name of Michael O. Could he be Michael O'Reilly, Douglas' biological father?"
Stella held up her hands as though shaping a picture frame. "It's a sad love story about two people, in love but forced apart as a result of the political drama around them. A different kind of Romeo and Juliet. In the middle of a bloody battle, Douglas is born and then given up in hopes that he would land in a loving home. Michael heads off to Lisburn in Northern Ireland and she to Newbridge, or Droichead Nua, in Ireland. Sadly, she discovers that she can't live without him and begins a letter writing campaign to win him back, but it appears the life together that she has dreamt of, that she gave up her baby for, never comes to pass. She is left forever forlorn, not only for the loss of him, but also for the loss of her baby, regret at the decision she was forced to face. Maybe over the years they occasionally get together, but can never make it work."
"A made for TV movie," Parker said. "Very nice."
Stella tapped the last envelope with the Ballycastle postmark. "What I want to know is what happened in 1981 when all the letters stopped, and where is Michael O now?"
"
We'll have to open the letters to find out," CJ said. "Are you guys okay with that?"
They both agreed.
"Where should we start? The end or the beginning?"
"Let's find out what happened in the end." Stella picked up the envelope and opened it.
Chapter 45
They all stared at the letter, a single sheet of notepaper with only a few brief words.
Róis,
For reasons I cannot say, I must leave me beloved Éire. It be best I not write again. Please do not try to find me.
Be well,
M
"He just left?" Stella sounded flabbergasted. "Why?"
CJ pointed to the iPad. "See if you can figure out if anything significant happened in May of 1981 in Northern Ireland, something that would send Michael fleeing from his country and cutting communications with his friends." He picked up the letter as though to closer examine it. "I wonder where he fled to. This last letter was postmarked in Ballycastle; on the coast, you say? Did he take a ship to somewhere?"
"An easy jump to Scotland from there," Parker said. "Then on to England and who knows where. Being over thirty years ago would make him a bit difficult to follow."
"There was the 1981 hunger strike," Stella said, poking her finger at her iPad.
CJ put down the letter. "Hunger strike? By who?"
"That would be whom," Stella said. "By whom."
"Whatever."
"Irish Republican prisoners had gone on a hunger strike in the Maze."
"Maze?"
"A prison." She continued to scroll. "On May 5th the first of ten died. His name was Bobby Sands."
"I don't see why Michael would be fleeing his country because of that. Was there anything else in May, closer to the 25th?"
They waited while she searched the web. "Here's something. On the 19th five British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army."
"That could be interesting," CJ said. "Six days later he's left Northern Ireland, saying goodbye to a friend of at least twelve years, without so much as a forwarding address."
"They were just pen pals," Parker said.
"They were more than pen pals," Stella said. "For one he called her Róis, like the flower rose I'm sure. That's more personal. Also, she saved the letters. At least to her, their relationship meant something."
"Exactly," CJ said. "They could have met up every few years, or every few weeks for that matter; occasional lovers. We may learn more about that in the letters. In any case I think he had something to do with that bomb and was on the run."
"It's not a stretch, CJ," Parker said. "Still, who is this guy now?"
"His letters to her may not tell us who he was. We don't have her letters to him, but we do have her diary."
With that Stella pulled the diary to her and carefully opened to the first page.
On the name plate was the name, Éibhleann Róis O'Donoghue, born 2 December 1948 in Droichead Nua, Ireland, Co. Kildare.
"So he used her middle name," Stella said. "Róis."
"Maybe that's the name she went by," Parker said. "Might kill your theory that it was an endearment. It was just her name."
"Maybe," Stella said.
"Interesting, though, where she was born," CJ said.
"What's so interesting about that?" Stella said.
"First of all, remember that Ireland and Northern Ireland are two different countries. Northern Ireland is under the British flag while Ireland is an Irish Free State. At just barely twenty-years-old Éibhleann leaves her country to be with someone across the border. I'd be willing to bet her parents weren't happy with the decision. She gets pregnant by him, a player in the PIRA or whatever organization is dealing blows against the British military during that period. About the time she goes into labor things are getting hot and heavy around Derry. Violence erupts as Douglas is born and this young woman makes a hasty decision. She doesn't want to raise her baby in such violence so off Douglas goes, into another life. Chances are she later changes her mind but by then it is too late. He is gone.
"Devastated, she flees back to the comfort of her parents in Droichead Nua, however, she loves Michael, cannot just forget about him. She begins a letter writing campaign to win him back, which, may or may not have been successful."
"It's obvious that they never married," Stella said. "Otherwise there wouldn't be all these letters and her name would be something other than O'Donoghue or Danohough."
"True. It does appear that she never married at all." CJ pointed at the diary. "Turn the page. Let's see what she wrote."
Stella turned quite a number of pages. "I don't like prying into this young girl's life at the age of fourteen, so I'm going to skip all this early stuff." She continued to turn pages and then stopped. "Here! Summer of 1968. There's Michael's name."
At first it was just his first name, then in September she wrote,
I am so tired of milking cows. Michael says he has to go back to Londonderry and asked that I should go with him.
WOW!!!! YES!!!!
Mrs. Michael O'Raghallaigh
He hasn't asked me yet, but he will. I know he will.
There were hearts all around the name.
"There's your Michael O and I'll bet the last name sounds just like O'Reilly," Parker said. "The g-h is probably silent."
CJ straightened up and stretched a bit. "So, when she put his name on the birth certificate, she had enough wherewithal to change the spelling to O'Reilly. But she wouldn't give up the father's full name, even in an unofficial document that she created."
Stella said, "I think she knew before he was even born that it was what she was going to do. She planned it. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision."
CJ pointed to the book. "Keep going. What happens next?"
She flipped through more pages. "Bla... bla, here we go. September 18th she writes that she is in Londonderry and her parents are pissed. She won't tell them where she is." She turned a few more pages. "A little bit more about that on the first of October. She talks about her sister and... the next entry is in November where she goes on about her love for Michael, but again misses her sister. More about never milking a cow again. December 25th she is lonely for home, Christmas with her mum and sis." She read for a few seconds. "And here is where she realizes that she has missed her period; on Christmas day."
Stella paged several times again, quickly scanning the feminine penmanship. "January 29th entry." She held it up so that the men could see.
I'm pregnant. How do I tell Michael?
Stella continued browsing. "She tells him in the middle of February. He is not happy about it."
"That's all fine and good," CJ said. "Skip to August. What does she say around the time Douglas is born?"
She paged forward, looking at dates, and then said, "Here we go. Early August she is concerned that Michael doesn't want the baby. She wonders how to give him up for adoption." She keeps turning pages, reading fast. "Talks about that every few days. She's very tired, depressed. Tries to call her mum but gets her dad. He refuses the reversed charges. A couple of days later she tries again. Same thing."
"This girl is mixed up and hurting," Parker said.
"August 12th she writes that the world has gone crazy."
"That's when the violence started," CJ said.
"Yes, and she's feeling labor pains. Then there is nothing until August 16th. She writes, 'Tried calling Mum. Not at home. Haven't seen Michael since before. All the crazy has stopped, but. Is he dead? In hospital? Wally say he was injured, but okay, busy. Michael doesn't want the baby. It is hard. He cries. Always crying. I wish I had me mum. Today I will... leave him.'"
"Leave him? Leave who? Michael?"
"No, Douglas." She holds up the diary and points to the next line.
He deserve better home. They will find him a home.
And then Stella pointed to two more lines.
Michael don't want him
I'm bad mum
"The 16th of August was when Douglas was left on the doorstop of the hospital," CJ said. "What did she write after that?"
Stella turned the page and then a few more pages. "Nothing. That was the last entry."
"Nothing? How can that be?"
She pushed the diary away. "She was a confused young girl who had to make a terrible decision. She gave up her baby and forever after, regretted it. She likely fell into a deeper depression upon returning to her parents' home, and tried hard to put it all behind her, which meant not talking about it even in her diary. Her diary went the way of childish memorabilia. She may have never opened it again but kept it with her as a stark reminder of what she did; in a way, her punishment."
"Do you think she told her parents?"
Stella shook her head. "I doubt it. Her heavy secret to bear."
"She returned to milking cows," Parker said.
They all sat in silence for a time. Finally CJ said, "Okay. It's a sad story for sure, one for the likes of Nicholas Sparks to listen to you talk, but that's not what we're here for. What I want to know is where did Michael go and where is he now?"
"I think you need to contact your FBI son," Parker said. "Didn't you say something about being told the night you arrived here that Agent Coulter implied they were looking for Douglas' parents?"
"I can't really say he implied it," CJ said, "but he didn't deny my suggestion that it was what they were doing." He leaned back for a few moments. "I'm thinking that it is actually Douglas' father who they are after, the man who fled Northern Ireland after killing or being involved with the killing of five British soldiers. I don't think Douglas' mother was anything more than a means to that end."
"Allegedly killing five British soldiers," Parker corrected.
"Allegedly."
"But we're still not getting anywhere near understanding where Michael disappeared to," Parker said. "We're going to have to go through the letters."
CJ pulled his stack toward him. "Then let's do it."
Little more than thirty minutes later they all sat back.
"That was a bust," CJ said. "No talk about Douglas or the IRA."
"Except in the first letter," Parker said. "What was it he said? 'I'm so sorry about the baby. At least you are okay.' That tells me that she led him to believe that the baby died at birth. After that the letters gradually turned mushy, 'I can't wait to see you' stuff."
Sailing into Death (CJ Washburn, PI Book 2) Page 30