Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7)

by Tom Lowe

  “Got fifty pounds of snapper. Some grouper left too.”

  “Since I restocked the bar for this occasion, let’s cook ‘em on Gibraltar and have a cocktail before hand.”

  Nick nodded. “I’ll wrap my piece in foil, bring over some nice fillets, and we’ll experience the thrill of the grill.”

  We sipped cold chardonnay, ate fresh grilled fish and Greek salads in Gibraltar’s cockpit, piano jazz coming from speakers in the salon, the setting sun igniting the western sky in hues of deep reds, pinks and clouds with lavender bellies. I told Dave and Nick about the two funerals, the arrests and charges leveled at the Johnson clan, Jeff Carson’s quick departure from office and the charges he is facing.

  I mentioned the buckshot taken out of Andy’s remains matching the shot I dug out from the tree. “Police believed the murder weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun Hack Johnson handed down to his kids. They often kept the gun in a rack in one of the trucks. I’ll be going back to testify. Lana Halley will ask for life in prison if Hack Johnson is convicted, and there’s no doubt that he will be. With all the evidence and the fact that Zeke Wiley agreed to testify against Johnson, life in prison for a man Johnson’s age is the death penalty—a slow death.”

  Dave said, “It’s big news all over the nation, Sean. The state attorney general is overseeing the prosecutions herself. The governor is trying to fold this into his campaign for the utmost political correctness mileage, saying, and I’m quoting here, ‘Our office will work with the attorney general to make sure no stone is left unturned, ensuring a thorough and complete investigation into allegations of criminal activity on the former reform school property.’ End quote. Blah-blah-blah. Nothing would have moved if you hadn’t moved.”

  Nick wiped olive oil from the tips of his fingers, sipped his beer and said, “It’s like you stepped back into a page from the book, Gone With the Wind, up there. It’s amazing how those guys got away with that much shit through the years.”

  Dave nodded. “When the state attorney is in cahoots, the law of the land becomes the law of one man. You knocked the hornet’s nest down, Sean.”

  I smiled. “But if you hadn’t tracked me so well, alerting—no, managing to find the guys in white hats, I would have been stung to death.”

  Dave sipped his drink, pushed back from the table, his eyes following a jet trail above the horizon in the darkening sky. He looked at me. “All in a day’s work. I live vicariously through your journeys. You’re a video game in the flesh, the bruised flesh.” He grinned and sipped his wine.

  I said nothing for a few moments, the gentle wake from a passing Hatteras rocking Gibraltar. Dave said, “I’ve seen that look. You’re trying to make sense out of the futile.”

  “I’m trying to see what I missed in Deputy Ivan Parker. I’ve been fooled before, but never quite like that.”

  “We all live our lives in shades of gray. So there was nothing black or white that would have popped out in your dealing with what appeared to be a very honest cop.”

  “He was a sociopath, and I had no clue. But, in retrospect, subtle signs were there. Either I chose to overlook them, or in comparing Deputy Parker to Detective Lee, and in needing an ally in law enforcement, I made a hasty choice that backfired. I wound up with a few broken pieces. The irony is that I told Caroline that sometimes we’re made better by having had a few pieces broken and welded back together again. At some point, you have to ask yourself…when do you learn your lesson?”

  Nick raised his shoulders, palms up. “Maybe if there’s no pain, there’s no gain.”

  Dave chuckled. “Spoken like a Greek philosopher, Nick. The obstacles, the confusion and even the fear…it’s all there to remind you there’s something better, something more just, and it’s worth fighting for. The broken pieces mend, and the scars are the visual reminders it was worth it. Often it’s the loss that teaches us about the worth of what’s right. ” Dave lifted his glass. “To wounds, welts and life’s blemishes because we can’t hit the rewind button on our lives, leaving out the crap without losing the very thing that made it meaningful.”

  We sipped our drinks, Max dozing on my lap. After another hour, I bid my friends goodnight and opened Jupiter’s doors and windows to air her out. I fixed Max a bowl of dog food, probably a food she didn’t have while I was away. She walked over to her bowl, sniffed and then jumped up onto the couch in the salon. I laughed. “Suit yourself. In picking you up, I did notice that it seems like you put on some weight.” Max closed her eyes, ignoring me.

  I removed my keys from my pockets and felt the photo in my shirt pocket. I lifted out the picture of Andy, walked over to my refrigerator and used a small magnet to stick the photo on the refrigerator door. The phone in my pocket buzzed. I looked at the ID. Lana Halley. I answered and she said, “This little town’s not the same when you’re not here.”

  I smiled. “Bet it’s a lot quieter.”

  “That it is, but sometimes too much quiet can be deafening in a weird way. Where are you?”

  “Back at Ponce Marina. I just opened up Jupiter. Max and I have opened all the windows, and we’re airing out the boat. The old boat’s been locked a little too long.”

  Lana was quiet a few seconds. “I can relate. Sean, I have a little time before things get intense around here. The state attorney general’s office is handling some of the heavy lifting in the cases, Jeff Carson’s included. I have a week or so to just get the hell out of here. God knows I could use it. I was online looking for places with white sand beaches, tropical flowers and the best rum punches in the whole Caribbean.”

  “The Caribbean? What’d you find?”

  “Two tickets to St. Vincent and the oh-so-lovely Grenadine islands. You told me how much you enjoy sailing a catamaran. They have a great special. It’s an eight-day rental. We’d leave from St. Vincent, sailing for Bequia and onward. I don’t want to sound presumptuous and I haven’t ever initiated this sort of thing…but after what we’ve seen…life’s just too damn short not to enjoy it more.”

  I said nothing for a few seconds.

  She said, “Are you there?”

  “You said two tickets…can we make it three? One’s not really a ticket because she can fit under the seat in front of us on the plane.”

  “She?”

  “Max. She’s sleeping on my couch. And when she heard me mention the Caribbean, she opened one eye. Max is my ten-pound dachshund. She loves to sail. Takes up hardly any room. Understands the meaning of privacy.”

  “I love her already.”

  EIGHTY-THREE

  We rented a thirty-six foot catamaran out of the Blue Lagoon Marina on the south side of St. Vincent. The itinerary would have us stopping at an island about every thirty miles. We cast off and sailed toward Bequia and Admiralty Bay, stopping in a secluded cove, dropping anchor and snorkeling the reefs and an underwater wreck. Max kept vigil about the catamaran. She sat in the shade of the cockpit and watched a pod of dolphins fifty yards off our stern.

  Lana slipped into a black bikini. We stepped from the dive platform into gin-clear water with a visibility of more than one hundred feet. She loved snorkeling and was good at it. She had breath control, able to stay down for a least a minute. We snorkeled for about an hour, surfacing, laughing and talking about what we’d just seen underwater. I held her hand diving to depths of fifteen feet. She tapped me on the shoulder, her eyes wide behind the facemask, pointing to a half dozen black seahorses swimming in and around pink and orange coral and sea fans. She gripped my hand when a five-foot barracuda came up to within a few feet of us, pausing and then darting away, its silver body catching the sunlight through the water.

  We swam back to the boat, Lana removing her fins at the swim ladder, tossing them on the deck and then climbing aboard. I followed. We towel dried and she said, “This is so beautiful.” She used a brush to comb her thick hair, her eyes following dolphins as they came closer. She smiled. “Maybe we should jump back in and join them.”

  “They can
hold their breath longer. They’d get bored with mere humans.”

  Lana laughed, petted Max, and sat in one of the deck chairs. “Sean, let’s just say ‘screw it’ and sail around the world. I’ve always wanted to do that. This boat seems big enough.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “It wouldn’t take much, would it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Unfortunately, I have some unfinished business in Jackson County. But after that’s done, let’s rethink this crazy but oh-so-delightful dream. Hungry?”

  “As matter of fact, I am.”

  “I’ll make a scrumptious salad, lobster included.”

  She entered the galley, Max following, Lana chatting with Max like a girlfriend. Twenty minutes later, we were eating at the deck table under the shade of the canopy, Lana had an Adele song streaming from satellite radio. We ate a delicious salad, kale and mixed greens with chunks of fresh lobster in a special dressing that Lana had made. We sipped rum punches and absorbed the beauty. The water was an emerald green within a mile of the shore, tapering off to a deep blue further out.

  We set sail again. Lana was a quick study, grasping the sails, moves, and the simple physics of sailing a cat. The Leopard cat was nimble, drawing about two feet of water, scooting over the surface at about fifteen knots. Lana sat with me at the helm, the wind in her hair. She looked behind us, laughed and said, “The dolphins are following us.”

  I turned and looked. More than a dozen dolphins easily caught up with the cat. They jumped and played to our starboard side, and then they cut under the boat, resurfacing on the port side. That got Max’s attention. She stood on a deck chair and barked twice, her long ears flapping in the wind. After a few more minutes, the dolphins left us—left us to cobalt blue seas, and gentle trade winds from the south and a perfect day. Max retreated back to a chair and napped.

  Lana sat next to me. She sipped rum from a tall glass and then set it in a cup holder. She took off her sunglasses and looked at me. Her eyes were as beautiful as the Caribbean waters, just as blue and just as full of life. She leaned in and we kissed, softly. Her lips warm and sensuous. I touched her cheek with one hand, her eyes almost hypnotic in their beauty. She smiled and said, “Do you know how long I wanted to do that?”

  “No, how long?” I smiled.

  “Too long.” We kissed again. Then she rested her head on my shoulder, watching the islands in the distance, singing softly to a song on the radio. “Sean, this is so relaxing. Thank you for joining me here.”

  “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “I’m already beginning to feel like putty. After a week of this, I’m not sure if I could ever go back.”

  I said nothing, leaning down to kiss her shoulder. She smiled and said, “When I became a prosecutor, it was because I thought I could change a little corner of the world. Sweep evil back under the door when it came across the threshold. Now, I’m not so sure. There’s just too much of it. I feel overwhelmed, and maybe I entered the wrong profession.”

  “You’ve gone through a lot these last few weeks. The wringer. It squeezes your heart.”

  “It’s wrung out my soul…causing sleepless nights. Causing me to rethink my purpose in life.”

  I said nothing. Listening.

  She exhaled and said, “After these upcoming cases, I’m thinking about going into defense work. And I’m only thinking about it because I saw how easily Jeff Carson could cheat the system. Maybe a good defense lawyer could have kept some of Carson’s victims out of jail.”

  “Follow your heart, Lana. That’s the best road.” I massaged her shoulder, a soft moan coming from her lips. I kissed her again. When we broke, she said, “Does this boat have an automatic pilot?” She smiled wide, the wind in her hair, sun on her face.

  “We can drop anchor. We’re only in thirty feet of water. You can see the bottom. We’re in no hurry. Time, in terms of having to be somewhere, is overboard. Buried at sea. You’re here to relax, to put Jackson County in the rearview mirror. Captain’s orders.” I smiled.

  “Does that mean I’m your first mate?”

  I answered her with a kiss. I lowered the anchor, the cat drifting onto a semi-stationary position, and then I took Lana’s hand leading her into the master cabin. Max stayed outside, napping in the shade.

  At the bedside, Lana and I kissed again, building in passion. I held her face in my hands. She touched my bare chest with the palm of her hand and looked into my eyes. Then she removed her bikini. Her body was amazing, curvaceous, firm and feminine. The sex was slow and sensuous. We took our time, lots of kissing, and exploring and then building to mutual climaxes.

  Afterwards, we took a shower together, dressed in light clothing and went topside, Max lifting her head. We decided to continue our southward trek, staying out of Admiralty Bay. Keeping away from the lights of island civilization. Within two hours, we were greeted with a fiery sunset in the western Caribbean. Just as the sun slipped beyond the sapphire sea, there was a quick green flash. Lana pointed. “Did you see that?”

  “What?”

  “The green flash.”

  “What green flash?”

  “On the horizon.”

  “You mean the one that pops when the sun sinks, right?”

  She playfully pushed my shoulder. “You did see it!”

  “I saw it. It’s not rare but if you blink, you miss it.”

  “I wonder what causes it.”

  “It’s the way the atmosphere is at the moment the sunlight slips over the curvature of the earth. The last rays are, in essence, trapped for a second. Their original source, the sun, now gone and the weaker light penetrating the atmosphere is green as it dissipates.”

  She smiled. “Was that meteorological trivia you learned in sailing school?”

  “No, I was curious so I looked it up online a few years ago.”

  When the sun left, the stars joined us. The Milky Way seemed to be a living thing above us. Pulsating. A heartbeat surely somewhere tucked between the stars. Lana looked behind the boat and said, “Wow…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it.” There were twin trails of blue-green light churning in the water from the boat’s wake. The kinetic energy from the double hulls skimming through the warm sea was creating an explosion of phosphorescence in the water. Baitfish jumped from the surface, flitting through the water causing the same lightshow. Two dolphins joined us, and it was as if they were swimming through an ocean of blue-green fire.

  Lana snapped pictures with her camera. “I hope I’m getting this. It’s simply incredible.”

  “This kind of lightshow doesn’t happen that often. The water temp has to be right. The season has to be right. The tiny microscopic life has to be in abundance. It all comes together to create a bioluminescence that glows unlike any manmade light source.”

  Max stared at the light explosions in our wake. I looked up, a meteor shot through the heavens. In the water, a dolphin created a blue comet just under the surface. It was as if the heavens knew no boundaries between earth and sky. We’d sailed across a planetary threshold, the universe turning fish and marine creatures into meteor showers of aquatic life, moving like fireflies in orbs and orbits of undersea starlight.

  I looked to the south and caught my breath. There it was. Just above the horizon. An ornament hanging from the sky due south, beyond the dark sea. The Southern Cross. “Lana…look at that.” I pointed in the direction.

  “Sean, what is it? It’s beautiful. Like a cross.”

  “It’s the Southern Cross.”

  Lana stared at the twinkling constellation, its reflection over the sea. “Dear God…I’m getting a chill. There are goose bumps on my arms. We’re looking at a heavenly designed cross…and when I think about Hack Johnson, his old tattoo and what he told children about the ‘Southern Cross of Justice’…I have no words.”

  “And now justice for Andy and the others is his cross to bear. Dante referred to the Southern Cross as the Crux. He’d ascribed four huma
n virtues to each star you’re looking at; justice, temperance, prudence and fortitude. But just down in the lower right, you can barely see a darker star—a faint fifth star. Does it remind us of the omnipresence of darker forces?”

  “Possibly. But right now, at this moment in time, Sean O’Brien, the brighter stars, fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice are what we see the clearest. Maybe there’s a celestial metaphor in the starlight. I’ve never seen the Southern Cross before tonight.”

  I smiled and held Lana close to me. Her skin had a slight floral scent from the soap. “Before my wife Sherri’s death a few years ago, we were sailing the Caribbean. She used to love to sing an old Crosby, Stills and Nash song…Southern Cross. Tonight, sharing this with you—you seeing the constellation for the first time, has helped me appreciate the lyrics a little better.

  “What are the lyrics?”

  “‘When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way. ‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small…but it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a new day.’”

  She looked up at me, the starlight in her eyes. “Tonight Lana, you’re the promise of a new day.”

  She smiled and we kissed, the Milky Way above and under us—the universe and sea dancing and seamless in the cosmos of light.

  The End

  Coming Summer 2016

  The following is preview from the novel

  A Murder of Crows

  (Prologue - Florida wilderness – 1835)

  Only a few people knew the name his mother had given him. Millions would know the name he took to his grave. He was born by a river, and throughout his short life rivers would speak to him. He stood on the banks of the Withlacoochee River deep in the heart of Central Florida. Watching. Listening. Looking for signs. The water was the shade of tea, moving slowly through the wilds, flowing at the base of giant cypress trees, limbs heavy with hanging moss. A brown limpkin screeched across the river. Cypress knees grew beneath the ancient trees, the knees protruding upright from the dark water, reaching for the hard blue sky. The current made slight eddies swirling between the cypress knees, the river whispering to him—warning him. Something was coming.