by Chris Beakey
There was minimal text underneath the photo: just “Kieran O’Shea is a teaching team leader of Langford Secondary’s Trade and Technical Academy.”
Stephen scrolled through the rest of the site. He saw nothing beyond the short bio. And then he went to the first of several stories from the Frederick News Post.
woman dies after fall on ice.
He clicked the link. There was a photo with the article, a shot of a woman’s face, staring straight at the camera, unsmiling, looking angry. She looked very much like Kieran O’Shea—with the same pale skin and black hair. Her eyes were lighter, and they looked puffy and red in the photo, as if she had been crying.
The text of the story was written like Associated Press copy, with short sentences that simply listed facts. Nurlene O’Shea, aged thirty-seven, had died from a head injury at a house located at 4334 Rolling Road. Frederick Sheriff’s deputies and paramedics had responded to a 911 call placed by her son, Kieran O’Shea, and had found her on the concrete steps outside the kitchen door. The stairs were slick from an ice storm. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The story had a quote from John Caruso, who was a deputy at the time, and who was the first responder to the call from Kieran.
Stephen gazed at the quote—“Both boys were shaken up, and it wasn’t the first time”—which made it clear that Caruso and O’Shea had known each other for years.
He focused on the photo of Nurlene O’Shea next. She looked like a big woman, and only slightly more feminine than Kieran O’Shea. The story was dated—her death had occurred on a January night ten years earlier. Kieran O’Shea looked to be in his mid twenties now, based on the Langford Secondary teacher page photo. So he had been a teenager when she died.
He went back to the search page. Typed Nurlene O’Shea into the box, and gazed at links to several more newspaper stories.
frederick woman charged with dui
social workers allege child abuse in frederick home
mother pleads not guilty to abuse charges
Stephen’s agitation intensified as he read through the nightmarish depictions of the things that had happened at the house on Rolling Road. He felt a line of sweat dripping down his right temple as he thought about the call from O’Shea; the implied threat in O’Shea’s words and tone.
You have to call him back. Find out what he wants.
He went to the last incoming number, from Sara’s cell.
It was answered on the third ring, but without a greeting; just the sound of steady breathing.
“Hello?” Stephen said.
The breathing sound continued.
“Is someone there?”
“What do you want?”
He looked down at the driveway, and at the pickup tire tracks in the snow.
“Is my daughter with you?”
There were several seconds of silence, and then, “Yes, I have her.”
“Can I talk to her?”
Silence on the other end.
“Please?”
“That really isn’t possible.”
He felt a rush of blood from his head, and grasped the woodwork at the edge of the window to steady himself.
“What do you want from me?” Stephen asked.
There was no response. After several seconds, he sat back down on the bed.
“Please, just tell me.”
“I guess we should talk.”
“All right. When?”
“Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Okay.”
“But not on the phone.”
“Where?”
“You know where I live.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Near there. Go on, a quarter mile or so past the house. There’s a clearing at the side of Rolling Road. Be there in an hour, by yourself.”
“Please tell me Sara is okay.”
There was a long pause, and then:
“I can’t tell you that.”
He shut his eyes, and begged:
“Please don’t hurt her.”
“Like you hurt my brother?”
He felt a swelling at the back of his throat; fought to breathe. “Please—don’t,” he said.
“One hour. I’ll be waiting.”
Kenneth was sitting at the breakfast bar when Stephen came down the back stairway that led to the open family room. He was drinking black coffee. His eyes had the puffy look Stephen recognized when his son had stayed up too late.
“Morning, Kenny.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. He had less than fifty minutes to get to the meeting place, but he took the time to come around Kenneth’s back and wrapped his arms around his shoulders.
Kenneth stiffened but did not break away. Stephen looked toward the door that led to the garage, and thought about the Explorer being seized and examined.
What would an innocent man do? He tightened the embrace, and said:
“Something terrible happened last night. A boy from your school was hit by a car. He died.”
Kenneth turned around. Stephen released him, and let his arms drop to his sides.
“His name was Aidan O’Shea,” he said. “He has a brother who teaches there.”
Kenneth nodded. “I know who Aidan is.”
“I’m sorry Kenny.”
It sounds like you just admitted something, he thought. He looked down at the floor, and then forced himself to meet his son’s eyes again.
“Detective Caruso came by this morning. He wanted to talk to me because I had to go out last night and pick up Sara. She was at the house where the boy lived. The Jeep broke down and she needed a ride home.”
He paused, and tried to concentrate on the storyline he would have to stick to.
“He knew I was in the area when the accident happened, because I had to get her, so they questioned me to see if I knew anything about it.”
Kenneth gazed back at him, and frowned.
He’s going to know you’re lying, Stephen thought. Once it all comes out—
“I have to go out for awhile. There’s cereal in the cabinet and milk in the fridge.”
Kenneth looked distant, as if he was questioning everything Stephen had just told him.
“Are you okay Kenny? Feeling better this morning?”
Kenneth shrugged, and turned back around.
The silence lengthened.
“All right, I’ll be back soon.” Stephen headed toward the door to the garage.
“Where did Sara go?”
Stephen stopped walking, and slowly turned around.
“What do you mean?”
“She…left.” Kenneth gave him an uncertain look, as if he had just ratted his sister out.
Stephen was once again conscious of the need to hold his tongue, knowing that at some point Kenneth might be asked to provide a statement about the conversation.
“I don’t know Kenny.” He stood very still, barely breathing. “Did you see her leave?”
Kenneth nodded. His bedroom windows looked directly out over the driveway. He would have seen the black truck, and perhaps a better view of the driver.
Stephen wondered how much Sara might have told him. His kids drove back and forth to school together every day and it was entirely possible that Kenneth knew something about his sister’s relationship with Kieran O’Shea.
He was an instant away from asking when he glanced up at the wall clock again. He now had forty-five minutes to reach the meeting place. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and thought of O’Shea driving away before he got there, then telling Detective Caruso everything he wanted to know.
“Kenny, I have to leave, but I’ll be back as soon as I can, all right?”
Kenneth stared at him, his posture still stiff and awkward on the barstool, a questioning look in
his eyes.
“All right,” he said, as Stephen headed out the door.
Stephen replaced the tail light cover behind the closed door of the garage. The remnants of the old cover went into the box from the new one. For the moment he had no choice but to hide the box in the small attic space reached by the steep pull-down ladder.
His balance wavered as he stepped back down the ladder and he had to lean against the Explorer for half a minute to regain it. He cringed at the rumbling sound as he shoved the ladder back into the attic space, knowing that Kenneth could probably hear it inside the house.
He pushed the button for the automatic door, which rose normally this time. There was a Frederick County Sheriff’s Department car parked across the street. The deputy behind the wheel looked directly at him with absolutely no expression on his face.
Stephen quickly turned away, thinking of Caruso’s last words about the warrant to seize the Explorer, and knew that the deputy was there at Caruso’s direction, guarding him. He thought of calling O’Shea back, pleading his inability to drive back up the mountain, but knew he wouldn’t care.
He started the engine and backed slowly down the driveway, expecting the sudden illumination of the light bar on the deputy’s car. It didn’t happen, but he watched as the deputy spoke into his hand-held radio mike.
He straightened the wheel and drove on, his heart pounding as the Sheriff’s Department car pulled out and followed him. He stayed just short of the speed limit through the housing development and then along the highway that took him toward the mountain. The deputy stayed a few car lengths behind him, close enough to be intimidating but far enough to stop if he hit the brakes.
The highway that led to the turnoff to the mountain had been plowed, but it was slick from the still-falling snow. The deputy stayed with him as he took the exit, wearing the same grim expression as they moved together up the winding, climbing roads. Stephen glanced at him through the rearview mirror every few seconds, and noticed as he pulled out the hand-held mike once more.
And then he saw a line of police vehicles, coming toward him. The cars weren’t speeding; just driving at a normal pace, steadily approaching.
They’re coming from the accident scene. He knew it for certain as they drew near; a white SUV in front, with two cruisers behind it. He looked into the rearview mirror again as they approached, and at that same moment the grill and light bar of the deputy’s car lit up. Two short whoops of the siren followed.
He tapped the brakes and pulled off onto the narrow shoulder, and watched as the SUV passed, noticing the state of Maryland seal and the writing on the side:
crash analysis reconstruction team
Two Sheriff’s Department cars followed. The car behind them was a Hummer, being driven by Detective Joseph Niles.
Niles made eye contact as he slowed and approached, then raised his right hand in the shape of a gun and pointed it at Stephen’s face and pantomimed a firing motion before making U-turn and coming up behind the deputy’s car.
Sara anxiously leaned forward in the passenger seat of Kieran’s truck and silently willed him to slow down and turn into the shopping center ahead. It housed a Starbucks and a McDonalds and plenty of other places where they could sit and talk; safe places where there would be other people watching them. That was what she had agreed to, and what Kieran had told her would happen.
But once again he kept going, past the entrance, the truck picking up speed.
“Kieran we have to stop.”
He stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard her. She turned in the seat and touched his forearm.
He swatted her hand away.
“Kieran—please.”
“Shut up Sara.”
His tone took her back to the night before—the hateful look on his face after she had stumbled and fallen in his house, the alarm still ringing in her ears. She saw the exit to Route 15 ahead of them, and gripped the strap above the window as he took it.
We’re going back up there, she thought. Back to his house.
The road narrowed to two lanes and began to climb. Kieran was still driving way too fast for the winding curves. The driver’s side window was down, despite the cold. The wind was whipping his long hair across his face. On the brief phone call his voice had been thick with anguish as he pleaded for her to talk to him about what had happened to Aidan, but he radiated nothing but anger and refused to speak to her once she was in his truck.
And now he was accelerating again—his heavy booted foot pressing the pedal to the floor.
“KIERAN—PLEASE!”
Her voice was lost in the wind. She leaned slightly forward and touched his forearm again. He shook her off but the motion seemed to have some impact as he tapped the brake and made the next curve. The woods rushed by in a blur, giving her a momentary glimpse of a small sign reading Alternate 5.
She realized they were heading up the mountain on a different route than he had told her to take the night before. It was narrower and lined with snow that had been pushed by the plows into steep banks on both sides. It had been several minutes since she had seen any other cars. She gripped the strap above the window again as the road broke free of the trees and gave her a view of the gorge below.
The thought that Kieran wanted to kill both of them hit her with a sudden, debilitating force as she thought about the pill bottles in his bedroom.
But then the road curved once again into the woods. The trees were massive here—big enough to split the truck in two if they hit one at the speed Kieran was going. But then she felt the truck slowing, as if the prayer had been answered.
They reached Kieran’s house. She thought back to the odd route they had taken up the mountain and knew that he had purposely chosen to stay off of the main roads. As if he was afraid of being caught, she thought.
She knew that her father would be angry that she left without telling him where she was going. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him running down to the garage and coming after them in the Explorer; his face strained with tension and worry.
Or fear, she thought. Because he’s scared of what Kieran knows.
The truck’s suspension bounced over the uneven ground as Kieran pulled into the yard. He drove up to the Jeep and cut the wheel to angle the truck sideways in front of it. The Jeep was now covered up to the bottom of its windows in snow. It looked as if it had been permanently immobilized. She felt a lead weight on her chest—a claustrophobia that squeezed the breath from her lungs and sent her back to the moment she had called her father and asked him to drive up the mountain and take her away.
She felt the same way now—afraid of what Kieran would do once they were inside the house. She tried to think of some way to convince him to take her somewhere else but before she could speak he turned off the ignition and abruptly opened the driver’s side door, and said “Get out.”
He stepped out into the snow and slammed the door behind him, then turned and stared at her through the window. His wind-whipped hair now hung in oily strands over his face and his eyes were bloodshot; his full lips tight and twisted downward. She stared at him—taking in his pale skin and the fine shape of his face—but had the sudden sense that she did not know him at all; that overnight he had become a different person.
She heard the ring of her phone—an eerie tinkling of bells. The sound was faint and came from outside. Kieran reached into his coat pocket and pulled it out, looked at the incoming number, and turned his back to her and stepped away from the car.
She turned halfway around in the seat and looked back toward the road and tried to imagine running away from the house instead of walking in; wondered how far she might get before Kieran came after her.
But it wasn’t your fault; he can’t blame you.
Or could he? The accident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t called her father; if she had simply stayed in the house an
d waited for Kieran to bring Aidan back. Which she would have done if not for the Web sites on Kieran’s computer, the stories about her mother’s death and the murder of the other woman on the same night.
She wondered what he would say if she asked him about what she’d seen; wondered if he knew something about her mother that she didn’t as she looked toward the door to the house, where Kieran now stood, staring out at her, waiting for her to follow him in.
She stood at the threshold for several seconds with the door open, feeling the cold outside air on the back of her neck.
The original living room in the trailer portion of the house was narrow and only slightly more illuminated than it had been when she had left the night before. There was a dark, open space in the short hallway, where the plywood had been.
She stared at it as a gust of wind blew a spray of flakes over the threshold and sent a shiver down her back. She shut the door, cutting off the pale daylight and deepening the gloom inside. She flicked the light switch on the wall. It turned on a lamp atop a small table that sat next to the door.
Her phone was there, where Kieran must have set it down after coming into the house. She picked it up, and saw that the call he had received outside the car had been from her father. She slipped it into the pocket of her coat as she heard the sound of cabinets being opened and closed and the sound of Kieran talking to someone.
She tried to decipher words amid his frantic, hushed tone of voice.
And then suddenly he yelled. “NO!”
She shivered from another chill up her backbone.
“STOP!”
She went to the kitchen doorway. Kieran was alone, with his back to her, his hands covering his ears.
“Kieran?”
He jerkily turned around and gripped the edge of the kitchen counter behind him and stared at her. He was still wearing his black leather coat. There was a ruddy brown blotch at the center of his chest, which had a faint sheen under the harsh overhead light.
After a moment he seemed to be calm again.
