by Lowe, Tom
“I’m good. And even better now. I do live in Florida, but not here. I don’t meet the age criteria. I have an old cabin on the St. Johns River, and I’m restoring a boat in a marina.”
“You always loved boats. You loved anything nautical.”
“Andrea, I need to talk with you.”
She bit her full bottom lip for a second, glanced at her husband on the stage, and turned back to me. “We’ll have to make it quick. Lloyd will wrap up in a few minutes. He’ll do some Q and A, and then we’re off to Tampa for another fundraiser.”
“I’ll have you back before he finishes.”
She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, turned to the agent and said, “Robert, I’m going to have a cup of coffee with my friend, Sean. We’ll be back in a minute.”
“Absolutely, Ms. Logan. May I ask, what’s your friend’s last name?”
“O’Brien, Sean O’Brien.”
I smiled at the agent as I walked away with Andrea, glancing up at the platform and into the eyes of Senator Lloyd Logan. I knew now that they had my last name, probably my image on face-recognition data banks, the searches were moving at the speed of light through the government’s computers. And I knew it was just a matter of a time before more than one agent would enter the coffee shop.
22
Only one customer was in the Starbucks, a man sitting in one corner. He had an iPhone on the table, as well as a tablet and small keyboard. Everyone else was outside, listening to Senator Logan speak. Andrea and I ordered coffee and sat at a table in the opposite corner. I took a chair where I could see the front door. “Your husband’s an eloquent speaker.”
“He’s passionate about what he’s saying as it relates to the betterment of the nation.”
I smiled. “I wish him the best. Why the federal agents at this point in the horse race?”
“The Secret Service offers protection where they think it’s needed the most. Lloyd is a front-runner, doing great in the polls. That means he has his share of detractors, people who would rather harm him than try to beat him at the ballot box.”
I looked over her shoulder and spotted the agent, Robert, standing outside the large front window. “Andrea, do you and I have a daughter?”
Her eyes opened a little more. Nostrils widening. “What? A daughter? Sean, what the hell’s going on? Is this some kind of a joke? Why are you showing up twenty years after we said goodbye, coming out of nowhere to pop up at my husband’s campaign appearance?”
“Because a young woman’s life might hinge on what you tell me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that a girl, maybe twenty years old, walked into in my life. She knew that I had a shamrock-shaped birthmark on my left arm. And there’s no way she could know that unless someone told her. You always said you loved that birthmark, loved touching it because you said it gave you good luck. This girl said because of it—the birthmark, she knew that she was related to me. But she didn’t say how. She didn’t get a chance, really. She was running from the scene of a killing. Police believe she murdered a man, maybe more than one.”
Andrea shuddered, her eyes on the cup of coffee in her hands. “Dear God,” she whispered.
“I have my doubts that she’s the killer. But right now I need to know if you were pregnant when we separated.”
Andrea lifted her eyes to mine. She started to speak when the front door opened wide and two men walked inside. The agent, Robert, remained outside. The two coming into Starbucks were older, wearing suits. Splashes of gray in one man’s hair. The other was balding. A straightforward walk. Wingtip shoes loud against the tile floor.
“Tell me, Andrea, were you pregnant?”
“Sean … this can’t be happening. Maybe one of Lloyd’s opponents is doing something to try to destroy the campaign.”
As the men walked toward us, I glanced at my phone on the table and discreetly pressed the video record button. The taller of the two, a man with a shave so close the pores on his face seemed threadbare, stepped closest. He said, “Excuse me, Ms. Logan. We need to have a word with this man.”
Andrea looked up from the table. “This man is a friend of mind. Everything’s fine, Andy.”
The agent nodded. “We understand. However, we still need to ask him a few questions.”
“Okay, but I want to be present to hear his answers, too.”
The agent scratched his clean-shaven face with one finger. He looked at me. “Mr. O’Brien, why are you at this rally today?”
I smiled. “Last time I checked it was a free country, and people could attend political rallies. What if I came to hear what the senator has to say?”
His chest swelled. The second agent stepped closer to the table. The sentinel at the window touched his earpiece.
Andrea said, “Sean, please. They’re just trying to do their jobs.” She looked at both agents and added, “Sean and I go way back. We’re simply catching up. That’s all.”
“Well, Ms. Logan, you’re catching up with a man who was in the middle of shootout a while back involving a radical Islamic group, Russian arms dealers, and weapons-grade uranium found in an old German U-boat. Mr. O’Brien has quite a history. Delta Force, serving in the Middle East. And a checkered past that’s either buried and sealed due to the nature of it, or he simply vanished off the radar for almost two years.” He looked down at me, his face well within the wide-angle lens of the phone. “So, Mr. O’Brien, we’d like to know why you’re here, and what’s the nature of this conversation?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I’m here because I have a right to be here. And the nature of what Andrea and I are talking about is private. None of your business.”
“All right, stand up. We’ll have the discussion elsewhere.”
I reached for my phone, video recorder still capturing the moment. “I have done nothing wrong, and I’m not going anywhere with you unless it’s to a cable news station, where they can broadcast the video I just recorded of your little inquisition, and we can take calls from viewers who’d be happy you ask you questions about First Amendment rights. How do you think that would flatter the campaign of Senator Lloyd Logan?”
His face smoldered for a brief moment, the tops of his ears red. He started to reach for my phone when Andrea raised her hand. “Gentlemen, we know you’re just doing your job. Please, leave us. Sean is one of the most honest, patriotic men I’ve ever known. And he’s right; what we’re discussing is private. Please, respect that. We’ll be done soon.”
I smiled at the agents as they checked their egos, exhaled tension, turned around, and left us alone in the coffee shop. Andrea raised an eyebrow and asked, “I remember hearing about that big takedown. News reports said it stemmed from the recovery of nuclear material on a German U-boat off the coast of Florida and involved Russian arms dealers and a radical Islamic sect. So you were in the middle of that?”
“By default. I was just a team member.”
She smiled. “I’m almost afraid to ask what other career choices you’ve made these last twenty years.”
“Andrea, if we had a daughter, if you had to give her up for adoption, I understand. I’m not here to judge, to do anything that might have an impact on your life or your husband’s political aspirations. I only want the truth. If we had a child together, she or he would be about the same age as this girl. Sometimes to help someone in the present, to shape the future, you have to know the past—to understand how the puzzle pieces interconnect.”
Andrea looked away, her face filling with two decades of sequestered thoughts. She blinked back tears, a red rash spreading on her throat.
Now, I knew. But I wanted to hear it from her.
“Sean, I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I owed that much to you. My parents were so unforgiving at the time, Dad especially. I think he took it to his grave. I literally went into hiding, and I gave the baby up for adoption the week that she was born.”
“So the baby was a girl?”
&nb
sp; “Yes. And hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about her. Wonder what she’s like, what’s she’s doing, whether she’s happy. I’ve prayed for her.”
Her eyes seem to burst in tears. Two decades of hidden thoughts, emotions, breaking through the dam she’s built to hold it all back. She stood and simply hugged me, her tears soaking into my shirt.
“It’s okay, Andrea. You did what you felt was right. Did you ever see the child again?” I reached in my coat pocket and handed her a clean, white handkerchief.
After she dried her tears she said, “No. Adoption records were sealed. And I thought not interfering would be the best thing for the child and the family that adopted her. So I didn’t try to meet the adoptive parents.”
“If you never saw her, you never told her about my birthmark, correct?”
“Yes, there’s no way. And I’ve never mentioned your birthmark to anyone else, either. No reason to.”
“Then how would Courtney know? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Courtney, that’s a lovely name. Please describe her to me?”
“Her eyes are mesmerizing, like yours. She has dark hair, and she’s about your height. Very independent. I think she’s been through a lot in her life.” I could see Andrea’s eyes beginning to well with tears again.
“Is she charged with murdering someone?”
“She’s wanted in connection with at least one death, possibly two.”
“I feel so … so disconnected. I never got pregnant again, and I’ve often thought it was God’s way of punishing me for giving away a gift he gave. What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
She stood from the table, her face troubled. “I best be getting back. I hope you can help this girl, especially if somehow she is our daughter. If she is … tell her … tell Courtney how much her mother loved her and how hard it was to give her to someone else.”
I stood and Andrea hugged me again, her arms holding onto my shoulders for a long moment. “Goodbye, Sean. Stay safe.” She looked up at me through moist eyes and kissed my cheek just as Senator Lloyd Logan walked through the door with the news media snapping pictures.
23
A U.S. Senator, in the throes of a presidential campaign, doesn’t simply enter a room, he or she tries to decorate a room with their presence. Senator Lloyd Logan along with his entourage of handlers and advisors, poured into the coffee shop with three TV news crews and an assortment of media types, their flash-photography like strobe lights and hand-held devices uploading sights, sounds and opinions to blogs, social media, and news media sites.
I was glad the cameras were to Logan’s back when he saw us. Even with the swagger of a politician’s ego, Logan looked like he’d burped up a bad pepperoni. His shark’s smile was more lopsided than predatory. He stepped up to us and extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Lloyd Logan.”
I smiled. “Sean O’Brien. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s mutual. I see that you and Andrea know each other. I’m glad you’re here for the rally, Sean. I do hope we can count on your support. Andrea, we have a plane to catch.”
“Lloyd, Sean and I were good friends in college. He came out to hear your message. We were just catching up. It’s been at least twenty years.”
Logan lowered his voice, his legislator’s smile returning. “How much of my message could he hear if you’ve been in Starbucks?” He slapped me on my back. “Good meeting you Sean. I do hope you heard enough of my agenda for the country to take personal stock in it.”
With that, they turned and streamed out of the coffee shop, mustering even more fanfare than the entourage did entering. I watched Andrea walking hand-in-hand with the candidate under the wide oaks, she moved slightly out-of-step, her former unbridled gait, her free spirit, now more like a compulsory march.
I felt a stab of sadness for the woman I’d once known, for what might have been had we persevered. And now the knowledge of a child, my child—a daughter, accentuated a kind of remorse I’d never known before. I watched the media pack stalk them and thought of Courtney. Was she my daughter? Our daughter? If so, and even if she had killed in self-defense, what would that mean for the campaign of Senator Lloyd Logan if it became public? And what would it mean for Courtney Burke?
I walked out of the Starbucks and placed a call to the mobile phone of Detective Dan Grant. He answered and said, “Talk to me. Did Courtney Burke try to contact you?”
“No. Look, Dan, since you and I go way back, there’s something I need to tell you about Courtney."
“I’m listening.”
“She knew something about me that very few people know. I’m trying to make sense of it, but I don’t have enough to go on.”
“What are you telling me, Sean? I’m almost afraid to even ask that question.”
“I might be related to her.”
“You mean as in family?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh shit. What a damn modern family that would be. Don’t tell me she’s your daughter.”
“I don’t know … she knew about a small birthmark on my arm. And she said if it was there, then we’re related.”
“Did she actually tell you this?”
“She told a guy at the fair, and he told me.”
“Who’s this guy?”
“Said his name’s Isaac Solminski.”
“The dwarf?”
“Don’t know what he looks like. Spoke with him on the phone. High voice.”
“I interviewed him. He’s like most carnies, always holding their cards close to their chests, only revealing what they want to reveal. Cooperation with the cops isn’t their thing.”
“Did you speak with Randal Barnes, one of the two guys who Nick overheard talking in the bar?”
“We found him. He wanted to deny ever being in the Tiki Bar. I told him credit card records don’t lie when somebody fitting his description, mermaid tattoo and all, was there with a guy named Smitty. Barnes finally admitted he was there, but denied ever talking about the killing of Lonnie Ebert. He said the guy called Smitty was someone he met at the bar.”
“He’s lying, Dan.”
“I know that, but we couldn’t find this Smitty character. Probably walked away from the carnival. So all of this isn’t even good circumstantial evidence. The carnival is pulling out earlier than the full week schedule. Seems murder is bad for business. One other thing, forensics found a partial print on the ice pick that wasn’t Courtney Burke’s print. Looks like a thumb. This wasn’t left in blood, but it was there. No match anywhere, yet.”
“Thanks, Dan—”
“Quick word of advice: I don’t care if you think this chick is your niece or a daughter you never knew you had, stay away from it, Sean. You’re a former homicide cop. In my book, she’s a serial killer. Man, that’s a bad damn mix. We’ll find her because she’s good at leaving a trail of bodies.”
He disconnected as I stood next to my Jeep, watching the entourage of Senator Lloyd Logan load into limos, the Secret Service in a black SUV, the convoy circling the town square for a final pass, waving to the crowd and smiling, before driving to the airport and boarding a private jet. Andrea Logan was sitting in the back seat of the black Lincoln, going through the motions of the dutiful wife of a career politician. But as the car passed me, as she looked my way, I could see a distant mourning in her eyes that would follow her far beyond the White House.
24
The taxi driver looked up in the rearview mirror and said, “This is it. Gibsonton. Know where you wanna go?”
Courtney nodded. “Just let me out at the corner.”
“You have family here?”
“No.”
“Okay. The corner seems like as good a place as any in Gibtown. I don’t get too many customers comin’ out here. They got some funky zoning laws in this town. They call it residential business zoning, which means you can keep a freakin’ elephant in your yard. The town’s made up of mostly all carny and circus people, retiree
s and whatnot. Used to be a hellava lot of ‘em back in the fifties. At one time, the fire chief of Gibtown was an eight-foot giant, and the police chief was a three-foot midget. My old man once told me he pulled up to a traffic light here, and in the lane next to him was the Bearded Woman behind the handle bars of a motorcycle and sitting in the sidecar next to her was the Lobster Boy.”
The taxi eased to a stop at the corner of Maggie Street and Alice Avenue. Courtney paid the fare and the got out. She walked west through a neighborhood of 1950’s-style ranch homes, some with remnants of Dodge-‘em cars and rusting animal cages in the front yards—yards filled with crabgrass, weeds, and decomposing monuments to the sideshows of a departed era in America.
Within three blocks, she was standing at the entrance to ShowTown Fish Camp. She walked down a dirt and gravel road, pockets of dark shade cast from thick oaks and long-leaf pine trees, green acorns scattered underfoot. There were about a dozen 1950’s vintage Airstream trailers, their shiny humpback exteriors smudged from age and tree sap. Cicadas hummed in the branches, and a mockingbird darted through the dappled light and low-hanging limbs, following Courtney with a series of vigilant screeches, each one sounding different.
The office was a small, free-standing cinderblock building, Army-green paint peeling from the blocks, large sunflowers on either side of the screened front door. A bumblebee hovered above one flower, the drone from its wings as loud as the cicadas in the trees. A dog barked somewhere behind the building. Courtney entered the dimly lit office, the smell of cigarettes and bug spray in the room. The walls were made from shellacked board cypress, adorned with carnival posters and old black and white framed photos of carny icons, the world’s smallest woman, Samantha, and the Siamese twins.
A television was on in the back room. Courtney rang the bell on the front-desk counter.
“Behind you,” came a man’s voice.
Courtney turned around and saw a dwarf with a snake draped over his shoulders. The little man had a bulbous red nose, a bald head dotted with age spots the color and size of pennies, and thick arched eyebrows over sorcerous dark eyes. He wore a purple and gold vest, Bermuda shorts, and no shoes. His long toenails resembled the talons of a hawk, curled and the shade of mustard. The dwarf stroked the snake’s yellow and white skin, its black tongue coiling in and out of its mouth, eyes like red pearls. The man and said, “Welcome to Gibtown, the best-kept secret on Florida’s west coast.”
