Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) (39 page)

I looked into the assembly of blue and green eyes, all staring directly at me, all looking for me to say something of worth, something that might somehow explain how in the hell, after forty-three years, I walked through the door. Within a second, a lyric from a Bob Dylan song echoed through my mind:
‘How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home? Like a complete unknown … like a rolling stone.’

I said, “I want to thank you all for being friends and good neighbors with my mother. I had a chance to spend only a few hours with her before her death. But I want you to know how much those hours meant to me, and how much I hope they meant to her. I learned that my mother had to give me up for adoption as a baby. She made the best decision she could at the time. Enough said about that. Thank you for looking after her. I’ll speak with the funeral director and make the arrangements for her burial. I hope you all will attend the service.”

I turned and walked back outside, my mother’s death now truly beginning to soak into my pores and go directly to my heart with the crushing grip of a vice constricting. I looked at all of the art equipment in my Jeep, and wished I’d found her six months earlier. I got inside the Jeep and just sat there. Not sure what to do or even where to go. I lowered the window and heard the sound of a diesel motor coming up the driveway. Within seconds, the white truck was parking in the circular drive next to my mother’s home. It was the same driver.

I got out and walked toward the truck. As he opened his door, I kicked it, slamming the door shut. The man behind the wheel shouted, “What the fuck’s your problem!”

“You’re my problem.”

“Just here to pay my respects, dude.”

“Get off the property.”

“What?”

“You heard me. This is private property, and you’re trespassing. Leave, and do it now.”

He started the diesel, sneering at me. “Dillon already knows what happened. There’s five acres here. All his, now. He might be here before the funeral. Could be two funerals that day. Odds are we’ll bury you soon enough right next to your mama.” He laughed and drove away. I stood there and watched him leave. My mother was dead, and the vultures were circling. A hot wind blew across the dry scrub lawns. I walked to my Jeep, the puffy white cottonwood seeds floating down around me like deceptive snowflakes in the heat of a South Carolina summer.

The mourning dove cooed its lonely refrain again, and the Dylan song sounded like a lost poem in the crypt of my memory banks.
‘How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home? Like a complete unknown … like a rolling stone.’

I drove toward town, needing to separate myself from the close-knit neighbors consoling one another in Irish cant, in my mother’s house. I wanted to clear my head. The Hospice representative, Debbie Thrasher, had been thorough in her explanations about “next steps,” giving me necessary paperwork. I wanted to read whatever it was that my mother had written, sealed, and left for me. But I didn’t want to read it in the presence of others.

I hit my brakes. The sign read:
John C. Calhoun Elementary School
. I pulled into the parking lot, stopping close to the main entrance. In less than a minute, I was standing at the reception area in the principal’s office. The secretary went in the back corridors to find her boss. The principal, a balding man with dark-framed glasses, met me with a hardy handshake. After introductions, I asked, “How’s your art department in the school?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, it used to be better. County went through another round of budget cuts. We’re short on teachers and supplies.”

“Do you have an art teacher?”

“Yes, one … why do you ask?”

“Because I have some supplies I’d like to donate to the school.”

“That’s very generous.” He glanced through the glass window with a direct view from the office into a hallway. “As a matter of fact, there goes Miss Hill, our art teacher.” He stepped into the hall and called her. After brief introductions were made, she followed me outside. I was parked in a no-parking zone next to the curb. Miss Hill was in her early thirties, thick auburn hair, worn stylishly in a retro 1940’s coiffure, white strand of pearls handing just below her open blouse.

I said, “I’ll off-load this stuff here if you can find someone to take it to you classroom.”

“That’s no problem.”

I unlocked the back of my Jeep. Her blue eyes opened wide. “Oh, dear. I don’t know what to say. This is fantastic. This will mean so much for our students. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I made a neat stack, piling all the supplies in a mound. Larger stuff on the bottom, lighter things on the top. She helped unload and said, “This is so kind of you, Mr. O’Brien. May I ask what made you want to donate to the school? And we’re so pleased that you did.”

“The person I originally bought this for can no longer paint. Her granddaughter went to this school a long time ago. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

***

I found a county park along the Savannah River, a place where I could get a good cell phone signal, be alone, and keep an eye out for any mercenaries who may have been dispatched by the Logan camp. If the body found in the Louisiana swamp was Courtney, I was glad my mother didn’t have to see that. What kind of man would shoot a nineteen-year-old girl a dozen times in her head? The kind of man who wouldn’t let anything stop him on his road to the White House.

I’d warned them. Sent the soldier back with a message. Left a voice-mail message on Andrea’s phone. They could ignore me, but I wouldn’t go away. My immediate plan was to take care of my mother’s funeral. If the body of the kid in the swamps was Courtney, I’d upload the video of the hit man screaming in the river. There is a certain raw honesty coming from the mouth, the lungs, and heart of a man about to be eaten by a huge alligator. That sort of credibility can’t be faked. I was betting the American voters could tell, too. Senator Logan wouldn’t pass a scratch and sniff test.

And his house of cards was about to come tumbling down.

I called Johnson Funeral Home and began making arrangements to bury my mother. When the funeral director asked me what I wanted inscribed on her headstone, I was at a loss. I didn’t even know when she was born, or how old she was at her death. Then I remembered the headstone in the cemetery I’d found while jogging, the red rose, the inscription. I told him I’d think about it and call him back.

My next call was to Sam McCourt, the attorney. He told me my mother had him file her will, leaving her home and property to granddaughter, Courtney Burke. He said, “Mr. O’Brien, probate won’t take long, unless you want to challenge your mother’s will.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay, well, she died with no outstanding debt, seventeen thousand dollars in her savings account. She owns five acres in Murphy Village and the trailer, all mortgage free. And one other thing, she had some land in Ireland. It apparently had been in the family a very long time. More than three hundred acres and a small farm house. All of it on the coast in County Kerry. I have an exact address for you. She was forced to sell some if to pay property taxes. But she refused to sell to a multinational hotel chain company wanting to build a time-share on the land. As her son, you can certainly act as executor.”

“All I want to do is make sure that the provisions of her will are carried out the way that she wanted.”

“That’s no problem, Mr. O’Brien. Mrs. O’Sullivan had already compensated the firm for our services, from the writing of the will through final dispensing of probate. I’m sorry for your loss. Your mother was a fine person. Please let us know if you have further questions. Goodbye.”

He disconnected. I set the phone down, looked through the pines toward the Savannah River, a trawler chugging down river, its wake plowing a wide V behind the stern. It was passed by a cigarette boat, gun metal gray, slowing a second then resuming speed.

I picked up the sealed envelope with my name on the outside. What had she written in the night? It occurred to me, as I thought about what to write on my mother’s gravestone, the last thing she ever wrote in her life was my name.

I sat in my Jeep and opened the plain, white envelope with my name written in blue ink on the outside. I lowered the windows and a felt a breeze blow in from across the Savannah River, the sweet smell of gardenias in the air. The sounds of children playing, laughing, came from somewhere in the park. I opened the envelope and read the words my mother had written.

Dear Sean,

I want you to know how grateful I am to have spent time with you. I feel blessed to have seen you as a grown man. I am so very proud of you. Please try to find Courtney, bring her home for me. I so long to see her face one more time. Help her find grace. You will need to protect her from your brother, Dillon. Be cautious and fearful of him. Dillon has murdered and killed his own family. He may not display the mark of Cain, but in my heart, I believe he carries the blood of Cain. He’s a wanderer who preys on others. Like his father, he’s soulless. Be careful, Sean.

There are many things in life I regret; having you as a son is not one of them. I am very sorry for the circumstances, and how I wasn’t able to raise you. But I want you to know that I never once stopped thinking about you, the sweet smell of your skin as a baby, the way you looked into my eyes as I nursed you. It tore my heart out to give you up for adoption. Not one day after I kissed you goodbye did I not think about you, to whisper my love for you, and pray that God would always hold you in his arms as I have held you in my heart. I wish I could have met your wife, Sherri. From what you told me, she was a remarkable woman. Take care of the little dog she gave you. Max will love you unconditionally, as do I.
I have some property in Ireland I leave to you and Courtney equally. The sunsets are marvelous there.

When you see a sunset, please think of me. Because it was in the twilight of my life when I found you, Sean. I hope each sunset through the remainder of your life will be beautiful, that you will know peace and love. Maybe when you see the colors of a day's end and its fleeting beauty you’ll think of me … as I will always think of you.

I love you forever,

Mom

As I finished her letter, a tear rolled down my face, splashing on the paper. I felt a sense of deep loss that wrapped itself around my heart. I played back our last four hours together—the conversations, her gentle laughter through pain, the light still in her eyes, the love bottomless in her weak heart. When Sherri died, it was different. I’d felt an unending sense of despair—a loneliness that crept into my pores like cold water and never receded. I was thankful for the thirteen years we shared together, angry at the robber—the cancer who stole time from our bottle.

The time thief had returned. I was given four hours in forty-three years, bothered by the lack of time, but yet grateful for the four hours. I had some quality time in the end with the woman who was there in my beginning. She was my mother.

And I was her son.

I raised the windows and started the Jeep. As I glanced toward the river, I caught a tiny reflection. Under a tree. In a rural place where there should be no manmade objects to reflect the sun.

The windshield exploded.

The bullet tore through my side window and the passenger window. High velocity. A rifle. I dropped as far over toward the passenger side as possible, shards of glass in my hair, my forehead and face cut, blood dripping onto my mother’s letter.

I reached up to the rearview mirror, quickly adjusting to see it, then I put the Jeep in reverse. I backed down the road, in the center of the park, found a clearing and made a turn. I sat up and drove straight out, circling the perimeter, driving around trees and bushes, and heading back toward the sniper by the river.

In less than a minute I was almost there. Driving with a lap full of broken glass, I warily pulled up near where I saw the wink from the sniper’s scope. He was gone. No one in sight. I grabbed my Glock, got out, and searched the area. I knew I wouldn’t find a spent cartridge, but I thought I might find something else.

And there they were. In the river mud. Boot prints. Not just any, but rather combat boot prints. I knelt down for a closer look, sampled the soil between my fingers. Panama soles. I bet they were identical to the prints I found in my yard. I snapped a picture with my phone for comparison. I could still smell the cordite in the motionless air. I stood and followed the boot prints down to the river. There were indications that a boat had come close to shore, the boot prints vanishing in the water, the mud on the bank bearing the gouge of a boat.

Now I knew why the high-speed cigarette boat was here.

Which way had they gone? To the right was Interstate 20 crossing the river a few miles north, beyond that, small river communities. To the left was the Port of Savannah a hundred-fifty miles away, and the Atlantic Ocean—and lots of marinas in between.

Also, there were bridges. I needed a map, and I needed it immediately. I put the battery back in my phone. It didn’t matter anymore. They knew where I was, and they found me. As I started to look at a map of Augusta and the river, a text message arrived. It was from an unknown source. The message read:
O’Brien, consider that a warning shot fired over your bow -- provide us with all copies of the video or you’ll receive the same fate as the girl …

I keyed in a map, found what I was looking for, memorized directions, and removed the phone battery. I raced out of the park, headed in the direction of the Savannah River near the 5th Street Bridge. It was less than ten miles away. I didn’t know if I could make it before the cigarette boat blew through, but I’d break every speed limit and rule to try.

Within a few minutes I was turning off Sandpit road onto East Railroad Avenue, an industrial mixture of warehouses, woods, broken fences, and clapboard homes. The hard-packed dirt and gravel road went under a railroad trestle. I pulled off the road next to a drainage ditch, got my .12 gauge shotgun out of the back seat, locked the Jeep and ran up the embankment. I turned left and ran down the tracks toward the river. I had a least a hundred yards to go. I did it flat out. Knees and legs pumping. Glock tucked under my belt. Shotgun gripped in both hands.