Dawn of the Golden Promise

by BJ Hoff

  Denny had been a policeman since he was little more than a lad, yet he could still be astounded by the treachery of human beings. Were it not for decent Christian folks such as Evan Whittaker and his kind, only the dear Lord knew what would become of the city’s innocent. Many were lost as it was, but the Whittakers and others like them had managed to rescue a few, God bless them.

  He had lost count by now of just how many ragged boys filled the beds at Whittaker House, but he had no doubt but what all of them were treated as fine as if they were the Whittakers’ own. Family, that’s what they called themselves at Whittaker House. God’s family.

  There had been a time, when he was but a stripling with all the carefree notions of youth, that Denny had given little thought to the importance of family, his own or others. Back then his mind had been almost entirely occupied with becoming a man, becoming an American, and becoming a policeman…in that order.

  But these days, now that he had accomplished some of his earlier goals, he found himself thinking more often about family. Not only about a family of his own, although that was a part of it, but about the importance of families everywhere. That’s what America was, after all—a country of families, working the land, building the cities, raising their children. Children who would one day grow up and have families of their own.

  He had almost begun to realize how empty two rooms could be when occupied alone. The truth was, he was tired of his solitary life. He had had his years of squiring the lasses, a different one on his arm every week, and it was grand, when he was younger. But he no longer wanted those idle days.

  He knew in his heart the time had come for him to be a husband, a father. The time had come to find someone with whom to share his life.

  Ah, but there was the rub. He had found her, had found just the girl.

  Who would have thought it, though, that he would tumble for a razor-tongued slip of a lass who had trouble written all over her face? A lass who thought him as dumb as a tree stump.

  There were countless fine-looking girls about the city who would be quick to give a man the attention and affection he craved. Fairer girls by far than the uppity Miss Quinn O’Shea, and with civil tongues in their heads as well.

  And the lot of them might just as well not even exist, for all he noticed or cared…

  As he walked up to the front door of the house, Denny wondered if Mike had ever considered his good fortune in having found, not one, but two women willing to give their hearts to him. Mike’s first wife had died years ago, when their son, Tierney, was still a little boy. But apparently they had shared a good life together, albeit a brief one. And now he had his Sara. Sure, there was no mistaking the feelings between the two.

  Denny drew a deep sigh, then shook the rain off his shoulders and knocked on the door. Perhaps a bit of their glow would rub off on him, at least enough to take the chill from the rain when he started back to his empty flat.

  He found Mike in the library, grim-visaged and sitting alone by a cold fireplace.

  Although he smiled when Denny entered, his expression sobered almost at once.

  “Sara will be sorry to have missed you,” he said after they exchanged pleasantries.

  Denny took the chair Mike offered across from his own and started right in to tell him about Billy Hogan and the events of the day.

  “Poor little fellow,” Mike said, shaking his head. “We can be thankful he has Whittaker and the other boys. He’ll make out all right with them, I expect.”

  With a nod, Denny inquired after Mike’s wife.

  “I doubt she’ll be down,” Mike replied somewhat glumly. “She’s…indisposed just now.”

  “She’s not ill, I hope?”

  Mike seemed to hesitate. “In truth,” he said, his eyes darting away from Denny, “I expect she’s avoiding me. We had a bit of a, ah, row this morning, you see.”

  He attempted a smile, but it faltered. “That’s the reason I came home early this afternoon, in hopes of making things up with her.” He paused, his lower lip dropping even more. “It would seem, however, that she isn’t quite ready to talk with me yet.”

  Denny blinked, trying not to show his surprise. Why, he wouldn’t have thought it of Mike and his Sara, could not conceive of them at odds with each other.

  “Sara thinks I’m making big out of little over the Walsh incident,” Mike volunteered. “She says I’m like a dog with a bone, that I don’t know when to give it over.”

  Denny said nothing, sensing the wisdom of silence.

  “She also seems to think I would rather have shot the scoundrel myself.”

  Denny’s eyes widened, but still he ventured no remark.

  With a sigh, Mike looked away. “I expect she may be right.”

  “Oh, I hardly think that’s the case, Mike. Not you.”

  The other locked his hands together over his chest, meeting Denny’s gaze straight on. “As it happens, Sara knows me too well. The truth is, Denny, and it shames me to admit it, that I find myself wishing exactly that. Or at least that Walsh had suffered before he died.” He paused. “I did not realize I had such a brutal streak in me, but there it is. I can hardly blame Sara for being put off by it.”

  Startled, but quick to take his friend’s part, Denny leaned forward. “No doubt ’tis difficult for others to understand a copper’s life, Mike. Our hearts tend to get hard over the years, no matter how we may try to protect them.”

  As if he hadn’t heard, Mike went on. “It was all too easy, the way he went. A snake like Walsh shouldn’t have met his end so easily.”

  He dropped his hands to the arms of the chair with another sigh. “Sara gets very impatient with this side of me, you see. She insists it’s not for me to question the judgment meted out to a man. And she’s right, of course. I can’t argue otherwise.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Denny said, “I’ve felt the same about Walsh. It does seem the rogue got off too easy entirely.”

  Mike lifted both eyebrows, this time managing a grimace of a smile. “Ah, well, Denny—the women would like us to be the good fellows they think they married. When we don’t measure up, I expect it’s disappointing.”

  Silence fell between them for a time. More than once Denny was tempted to voice his own disappointments, but it was clear that Mike’s thoughts were already troubled. It didn’t seem right to burden him further.

  Just when the stillness was beginning to feel awkward, Mike leaned forward, studying Denny with an interest that hadn’t been there before. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Denny, you don’t seem quite yourself today. Is there something more on your mind, I wonder?”

  Denny looked at him, deliberating how much, if anything, he might say. Mike was his friend, his only close friend if truth were told, but he was also his captain. He wouldn’t want Mike to think one of his sergeants had turned into a weak sister.

  But in spite of his caution, he suddenly found himself letting go, pouring out in one explosive rush of disjointed words his feelings, his frustrations, and his fears in regard to Quinn O’Shea. He confessed the urge that sometimes came upon him to shake the girl for her obstinacy, an urge that could just as easily change to a desire to embrace her with great tenderness. He admitted to the hurt he felt when she avoided him or shied away as if he were a wild beast—like a spear to his heart, that feeling. He told Mike how it incensed him when she took on airs and tried to play the grand lady, making him feel like a great bumbling eejit. He even confessed to the terrible fierce jealousy that overcame him when he chanced to see her acting a bit too chummy with the Kavanagh lad.

  Mike listened, as he always did when one of his men spoke his mind or his heart, saying not a word the entire time, but rather suffering Denny’s rambling tirade. He had a way, Mike did, of patiently hearing a man out, as if his problem was the most momentous event of the hour, worthy of a captain’s undivided attention.

  Only when Denny finally slumped back in the monster of a chair, spent and weak as an old woman, did Mike
lean forward and smile at him—a kind, brotherly sort of smile that let Denny know at once that he had not lost his friend’s respect or strained his patience.

  “Denny, my boy,” Mike said kindly, “it is clear that you are finally in love.”

  “Surely not,” Denny protested, at the same time acknowledging his own suspicions. He sat up straight, knotting his hands on his knees. “I am altogether miserable, Mike.”

  Mike nodded, a look of great wisdom upon him. “Aye. It is as I said. Poor lad, you are finally in love.”

  In his room at the end of the corridor, Bhima the Turtle Boy listened with growing anger as the Stump unraveled his narrative about the stranger and his gruesome offer.

  All manner of sick jokes were routinely bantered about at the expense of Bhima, who had no legs, when he was seen in the company of Fritz Cochran—the Stump—who had no arms. Despite the cruel humor their companionship incurred, the two had become good friends over the years.

  Bhima scooted the cart that bore his legless torso a little closer to his friend. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him it would take a bit of time, but I thought I knew just the sort of roughneck who might be willing to handle the job for him.”

  Bhima’s eyes widened, and Fritz rushed to explain. “I thought it best to let him believe he’d found his man. Otherwise he might go looking elsewhere, don’t you see?”

  Bhima did see, and he was thankful for his friend’s quick wits. “How are you to contact him again? And when?”

  “He’s to stop by later tonight. I told him I’d set up a meeting by then.” He paused. “So—what do we do?”

  Bhima’s mind raced. “We have to tell Pastor Dalton right away, of course.”

  “He’s over to the mission now, or at least he was. I’ll go and fetch him.”

  “Wait. We need to send for Captain Burke as well. I’d not want to risk making a mistake and somehow jeopardize the little girl. The captain will know what to do.”

  Fritz nodded. “I’ll get Pauley to go for the captain, while I fetch the preacher.”

  “Be careful,” Bhima cautioned as Fritz turned to go. “Whatever we do, we mustn’t let word of this slip to anyone else. There’s a great deal at stake here. And it’s our chance to help Pastor Dalton.”

  “That’s true. The Lord knows that good man has given up enough to help us. The least we can do is return his kindness.”

  As soon as Denny Price was out the door, Michael went upstairs to the bedroom. He fully expected to find Sara napping. Instead, she was sitting in the rocking chair, looking out the window.

  It was unlike her to be idle. On those rare occasions when she sat quietly in the afternoons, it was usually with a book or some mending.

  Guilt stabbed at Michael. Apparently his behavior had distressed her more than he would have thought.

  She looked at him when he entered the room, but immediately turned back to the window.

  After closing the door, he went to stand behind her, his hand on either post of the rocking chair.

  He cleared his throat. “Denny Price was here,” he said. “He asked after you.”

  She nodded but made no reply.

  Michael hesitated for a moment, his insides aching at her coolness. “Denny is in love, it would seem,” he ventured lightly, hoping to thaw her icy composure.

  She slowed the rocking motion of the chair but made no move to look at him. “Denny Price? In love with whom?”

  Encouraged, Michael came around to stand in front of her. “You’ll not believe it. ’Tis Quinn O’Shea. He has fallen for Quinn O’Shea.”

  She stopped rocking altogether now, and he could almost hear her busy mind wheeling with possibilities. “Quinn O’Shea and Denny Price?” She hesitated, then started rocking again. “I’m not at all surprised.”

  Michael stared at her. “Well, I am! The girl doesn’t strike me as the sort to turn the head of a charmer like Denny Price.”

  She shrugged. “I’d say they would be a good match. Quinn is enterprising, intelligent, and high-spirited.”

  “She’s spirited, right enough,” Michael muttered.

  Sara gave him a sharp look. “And Denny Price is enterprising, intelligent—and hardheaded. It should be an ideal relationship.”

  “There is no ‘relationship,’” Michael pointed out. “Denny says the girl wants nothing to do with him.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe. From what I’ve been told, women practically fall at Denny’s feet.”

  “Nothing quite so dramatic as that, but he does seem to have a way with the ladies.”

  She appeared to be warming to the conversation. Determined to put their tiff of the morning behind them, Michael hurried on. “Denny insists that the girl avoids him. Even when they’re together, he says she’s as guarded as a cornered wildcat.”

  Sara seemed to consider his words. “I suppose it might be the difference in their ages. Quinn’s awfully young.”

  That stopped Michael for a moment, long enough for him to do some quick calculations. “There’s not all that much more difference in their ages than there is in ours,” he said. His tone sounded defensive, but he couldn’t entirely keep his hurt feelings under wraps.

  She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “I suppose that’s true.”

  He ground his teeth. She was still riled, all right.

  “Sara…can we talk about this morning?”

  She looked away. “I can’t think why. There doesn’t seem to be any reaching you on the subject, Michael.”

  “The subject of Patrick Walsh, you mean.”

  She nodded.

  “Why can’t you understand how I feel?”

  She turned her gaze back to him, and he was surprised to see concern in her eyes rather than exasperation. “Oh, Michael—I do understand how you feel! That’s what upsets me so. None of this is like you.”

  “What isn’t like me?” he countered stiffly.

  She studied him for a moment. “To be so…coldhearted! I understand your bitterness about Patrick Walsh, but—”

  “So I’m bitter, am I?”

  “Yes, you are! You’re bitter and resentful and angry. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but when you talk about Walsh and how—how ‘easy’ he got off, I hear this terrible anger in you. Why can’t you just accept what happened to the man and go on?”

  He looked at her for a moment, then began to pace the room. “Sara—I’m a policeman. Try to understand, if you will, why I feel the way I do about Patrick Walsh. I deal with the lowest sort of human being almost every day of my life. Some are little more than mindless beasts. They steal from the poor, they swindle the honest, they lie and they murder and they rape—they destroy lives, Sara. And more often than not, they get away clean with it all.”

  He stopped by the window again but did not face her. Instead, he turned to look out into the rain-veiled afternoon.

  “I know it must seem to you that by now I should have learned how to shake it off—the cruelty, the madness, the injustice of it all and put it behind me.” He turned back to her. “Most of the time I can do just that. Otherwise, I expect I would have gone mad long before now.”

  He raked his hands down both sides of his face and expelled a long breath. “The thing is, Sara,” he said, struggling to articulate his feelings, “once in a great while, a cop comes up against a true monster. There are real monsters out there, Sara, believe me. Monsters who spend their entire lives preying on the innocent, taking—always taking—whatever they can from the unsuspecting or the helpless. They destroy the lives of almost everyone they touch. Sometimes they even destroy the lives of those who love them.”

  Suddenly bone-weary, he sank down on the window seat. The rain had brought a dull ache to his knees, and he rubbed them as he went on. “Patrick Walsh was just such a monster. That sort has no conscience. No heart. I recognized him for what he was the first time I met him. I knew, Sara. I just knew.”

  He looked u
p. The indifferent glare had disappeared from her eyes, and she was leaning toward him, understanding softening her face. Her dear face…

  “I can’t explain what Walsh provoked in me,” he went on. “Contempt. Disgust. Anger, most of all. It enraged me that he had become so successful and powerful—and obscenely wealthy—at the expense of those less fortunate. That he simply didn’t care what he did, how many lives he ruined. Even ours, in a way. If it hadn’t been for him, Tierney wouldn’t be in exile in Ireland. The boy will forever bear the scars of Patrick Walsh’s evil ambition.

  “I simply couldn’t stop him. Every time I thought I had him on the ropes, he slipped away. Every attempt I made to bring him down failed. For so long I lived with such a terrible feeling of helplessness inside me because of the man, don’t you see? And then, all of a sudden—” He pulled in a shuddering breath, spreading his hands palms up. “All of a sudden, he was gone. In an instant. Just like that, he was gone.”

  He looked at her, almost pleading for her understanding.

  “Ah, Sara—I felt so incredibly cheated! I felt as if justice itself had been violated. It was almost as if Walsh’s death was just one more escape—one more time he had managed to evade the punishment he deserved! He was a monster, and I wanted him to pay, and when he didn’t—” He stopped, shaking his head, for there were no more words.

  “Oh, Michael…Michael…”

  She drew him into her arms, and he had all he could do not to blubber like a babe. For so long he had carried the weight of his emotions alone. Any longer and he thought he might have died with the burden.

  He took the rocking chair now, pulling her onto his lap, into his arms. She pressed his head against her heart, soothing him as she might have a hurting child.

  “Do you understand now, Sara?” His voice was muffled against her warmth. “Do you?”

  “Oh, Michael, yes! Yes, I do! You don’t have to defend yourself to me. This morning…this morning, I was foolish. I was only trying to help you—and instead I ended up accusing you. I’m so sorry.”