Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) (35 page)

I continued driving up Highway 25, following a printed map in search of the address Dave Collins had given to me. I’d removed the battery and sim cards from my phones. Didn’t use a portable GPS either. Didn’t want to chance an eye in the sky following me. I glanced from the map in my hand to my gas gauge. Nineteen miles until empty.

I pulled off the road and stopped at a Chevron station. I stepped inside to pay the clerk cash before pumping. I bought a large coffee, black, paid and walked back outside. An older model blue pickup truck eased up to the pump opposite the one I was using. A man dressed in faded overalls and a sweat-stained John Deere green cap, got out of the truck. He was at least seventy, lanky, unshaved, face filled with white whiskers. He nodded at me and said, “We sure need some rain. My corn crop won’t make it another three days if we don’t get us a damn good rain.”

“What’s the forecast?”

“Hot, hot, and hotter. Damndest weather in the last few years than anytime I can remember. I ain’t no tree hugger, but I damn sure believe we mucked up stuff so much it’s affected the climate. You work the land, you can tell.” He nodded and started pumping gas into the old truck. He looked back at me. “Where you from?”

“Florida.”

“Ya’ll got hit hard with a freeze last winter. Ruined most of the citrus.”

“You’re right. How far is Murphy Village?”

I saw his right eyebrow rise up. “It’s about ten miles down twenty-five. Can’t miss it. The place is mansions and junkyards. Industrial, residential, and even some agricultural land all rolled into one place.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t want to sound nosey, but why would a fella from Florida want to go there?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

He nodded, glanced at the gasoline pump, and cut his eye back to me. “Lemme give you a little friendly advice. Don’t hire anybody in there to do anything for you. If your car needs fixin,’ go someplace else.”

“Why the caution?”

“That’s the largest population of Irish gypsies in the country. They call themselves travelers, not gypsies, but it’s the same. Every summer the men head out, they travel all over the nation. Some use fake ID’s. Fake license plates on their trucks and cars. They’ll paint your house with watered-down paint. Repave your driveway with materials that don’t last. Fix your roof ‘til the next big cloud-buster. By then, they’re long gone. They’re some of the best con artists anywhere. Smooth talkers. One fella will knock at your door, with a sob story, or a deal that’s too damn good to be true. His partner will be stealing your silver. The elderly, people my age, that’s their prime targets.”

“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.

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 much 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.”

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.”