OUT OF THE BLUE

by Caroline Clemmons

  Brendan’s ennui fled. He couldn’t believe Mark had found one of the names, and he scanned the computer monitor. The elaborate old script was difficult to decipher but he picked out a name immediately, then another and another. “Well I’ll be damned, that’s Deirdre Dougherty’s baptismal record, isn’t it?”

  Okay, maybe this hobby had merit after all, at least under the right circumstances.

  Mark nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Right there in the parish register with her parents.”

  “Can you scan down and find her mother’s death and hers?”

  “I’ll try.” He read through births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths. “Here’s the father’s death. Sure enough, it matches what you have.”

  “Keep going if you don’t mind. I’d like to see what it says about Deirdre’s death.” Maybe this Deirdre was an ancestor of the one he knew and that’s how she came up with the names and dates.

  “Here’s the mother’s death. And look, just a week later is Deirdre’s death. Poor girl fell off a cliff when she was just twenty-five. Shame.”

  Hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “Um, Mark, can you print me a copy of that screen?”

  “Happy to.” Mark moved the cursor and sent the command to print. “While we’re at it, you want me to look up any of your family?”

  “Thanks, but not today. Maybe some other time. I admit it’s kind of intriguing.” And that’s what came of lying. Once you started, you couldn’t stop.

  Mark grabbed the sheet from the printer and handed it to Brendan. “I knew you’d catch the bug. I tell you it’s irresistible. And for every name you find, you need the parents, so you never finish the search.”

  “Thanks, but that part’s not so tempting. Frustrated as I am with my current project, I figure the last thing I need is to get into one that has no end.”

  Mark chuckled. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “I may be back for some pointers when I get this other thing figured out.” He thanked Mark and left.

  The information had startled him. Either the Deirdre he knew or another one actually dropped off a cliff a week after the death of her mother. Perhaps Deirdre—if that was even her name—was just a thorough con. Had simply done her research. He’d discover the answer after dinner tonight.

  Thinking of cons, he took another sheet of paper from his pocket. He’d found it on the seat of his mother’s Lexus the night she’d told him about obtaining Deirdre’s forged paperwork. That piece of luck had saved him some digging. Worrying about his mom’s involvement and how to handle his knowledge had cost him plenty of sleep, but now he had a grasp on it.

  By following the directions listed, he reached an apartment building a mile from the university campus. Not a plush neighborhood, in fact it approached seedy. He knocked, wishing he had a handle on how this should go down. One thing he knew. He was going to scare the shit out of this guy.

  The door opened a crack and, over the security chain, a young man peeked out. Nothing sinister about his appearance. Instead, he looked like the typical geek university student. “Yeah?”

  Brendan consulted the directions. Ask for Bill and tell him Tom Whitley sent you. “You Bill?”

  “Yeah. Who’re you?”

  “A friend of Tom Whitley’s.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “He didn’t say anything about sending someone.”

  Brendan smiled what he hoped was pleasantly. “I live next door to him. May I come in?”

  He hesitated, then released the safety chain and opened the door.

  Brendan stepped inside the apartment. Sparse, but not too bad for a college student’s pad. A textbook lay open on the small breakfast set, pencil and paper beside it. A delivery pizza box sat nearby alongside several soft drink cans. The furniture looked like garage sale and curbside acquisitions.

  “So, what do you want?” Bill sat at his computer.

  “To ask how the hell you think you can get away with this racket?”

  The young man whirled. “What? You came to me, mister. I didn’t ask for your business. You change your mind, go.”

  “You may remember my mother and a young woman came here a couple of days ago.”

  “And?”

  Brendan pulled a chair around and straddled it to face the kid. “I’m a police detective, Bill.” He held up a hand when the kid’s face turned so pale he feared Bill would pass out. “You know what you’re doing is against the law. I’m shutting you down right now.”

  Bill placed a hand over his eyes. “Oh God, oh God. You’re arresting me. Oh, God.”

  “Not unless I have to. You see reason, maybe we can reach a compromise.” Brendan hesitated to incriminate his own mother, plus an arrest would create several problems for Deirdre.

  The kid pleaded, “You think I like doing this? I hate it, but I’m good at it.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I help lots of people so they can work. Isn’t it better to have them working, paying taxes, than forced to steal?”

  Brendan pointed at the young man. “Kid, you think you’re serving mankind, you’re delusional. What about all the lives you ruin by stealing identities? Answer me that?”

  “Hey”—the kid held up his hands—“I don’t do credit cards. Nothing I do hurts anyone.”

  “Yeah? Once these people get a job, how long you think it is before they have credit cards in their new name? They don’t pay and some poor stiff two states away can’t buy a house because of you.”

  If possible, the kid paled further. “Look, all I’m doing is trying to get through school. I gotta send money to my mom and pay my tuition and stuff. I was gonna stop as soon as I graduated and had a job.”

  Lord help me, not another guy looking out for his mom?

  “Give me a break, Bill. All you crooks have a sob story to excuse your con. Yours is sending money to your mother? Like you never heard of student loans.”

  “You think I didn’t try that? No way I could borrow enough.” Bill pleaded, “Honest, I’m not lying. My dad took off years ago. My mom has no one but me and my kid sister, and Fran’s only fourteen. Mom hasn’t been able to work the last few years. Bad heart, complications. She made me promise I’d finish my degree. She thinks I have a fat graphics job.”

  “Hmph, looks like she’s right. She have disability insurance?”

  “Sure, but it doesn’t cover everything.” His voice still pleaded, “I just stumbled into this from a guy graduated the semester before I came. Nothing else I can do would make enough to pay her bills much less let me stay in school.”

  The kid still looked ready to pass out. “Oh, God. Please, if you put me out of business before I graduate, there’s no way I can make enough to provide for her and my sister.”

  “Where’s she live?” Brendan asked, giving himself time to think.

  “Graham. Her new cardiologist’s in Fort Worth, and I’ve been trying to get her to move there. She wants to wait until my sister graduates.”

  Brendan tented his fingers and gave Bill’s predicament some additional thought. He understood a guy worrying about his mom and sister, but he couldn’t let Bill continue his illegal set up. ”Sooner or later, the Feds will get a lead on you. You won’t help your mother by going to jail.”

  “It’d kill her.” Bill slumped, elbows on his desk and forehead resting on his hands. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You making good grades?”

  Frowning, Bill raised his head. “Yeah, why?”

  Brendan grabbed a sheet of paper from a desk shelf and handed it to Bill. “Figure out how much it costs you to live—tuition, books, rent, your mom, sister, everything.”

  “I already know to the last penny.” He wrote a figure on the paper.

  “Here’s what I’m offering.” Brendan looked around the small apartment. No fireplace. Electric range. “You have a barbecue grill.”

  “A-A small one. Like a hibachi.”

  Mad at himself and the world, Brendan slashed a number unde
r Bill’s. “Okay, I’ll give you this much money each month so you can take care of your mom and stay in school.”

  “Yeah, and what do you want?” Bill’s eyes narrowed, his voice wary. He looked like he figured Brendan for some perverted creep.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you little shit. What I want in exchange is for you give me all the document blanks. I mean all the stuff, Bill, including your hard drive.”

  “And what are you gonna do with it?”

  Brendan wanted to bust the kid in the mouth for landing either of them in this position. “Burn them in your grill. Then, you get a job doing whatever, as long as it’s a hundred percent legal. At the end of each semester, you send me a copy of your grades. And they’d better be good.”

  Bill shook his head, his face incredulous. “You’d do that? You’d help me out? There has to be a catch. What do you expect out of this?”

  “To make sure your mother doesn’t lose her son.” And Brendan didn’t lose his mother or his job. “But there’s no going back. You have to swear you’ll walk the straight and narrow the rest of your life. I hear differently, I’ll make it my mission to see you in jail.”

  “You’re serious?” Bill exhaled a whoosh of breath. His eyes were moist with tears. “You’re really serious, aren’t you? I thought policemen barely made enough to live on.”

  “You bet I’m serious. But you’re right, all law officers are underpaid. My grandparents left me money.”

  And they’d hate what he was doing with it, which he considered a sign he was using the money the right way.

  Brendan stood. “We can set up an account at my bank that pays into yours each month. That way, something happens to me, you still get your money.” And with people trying to kill him right and left, he figured the kid might need a guaranteed income.

  “It’s unbelievable. I-I can’t tell you how relieved I’d be to be safely out of this and not looking over my shoulder all the time.”

  “Okay, gather this crap up and torch it. Then we’ll go to the bank. As of this minute, you’re out of the fake ID business.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On the way to his mom’s, Brendan saw Dave Roan pruning a tree in his front yard. He pulled into Dave’s driveway and got out.

  Dave lowered his lopping shears. “Storm last night broke a couple of limbs on my favorite magnolia.” He laid the shears in a nearby wheelbarrow and took off his leather gloves. “Heard about your crash. Like to hear your version.”

  Brendan started telling him about the wreck, and Dave interrupted. “This story sounds like a doozy. How about finishing it over a beer?”

  They went inside and sat at Dave’s breakfast bar while Brendan finished his tale.

  “Incredible. Lucky you got out of the car before it exploded.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled out the page his friend had printed for him. “You know Mark Staggs?”

  Dave nodded and rolled his eyes. “Guy’s always talking about his ancestors. According to him, he’s related to every line of royalty as well as most of the U.S. Presidents. What a bore. I try to avoid him.”

  “But look at this.” He rested a forefinger on Deirdre’s name. “It’s from the parish register in Ireland. For 1845.”

  Dave adjusted his glasses and peered at the script. “Son of a gun, her story is true. Blossom told me so, but I didn’t know what to think.”

  Brendan looked at Dave over his beer and took a long swallow. “Thing is, she believes she has so-called visions that foretell the future as well as that she traveled from 1845 Ireland to current day Texas in a blink. I was convinced she was crazy or feeding me a line of blarney for some kind of scam. Now I’m wondering if I’m the crazy one. It’s driving me up the wall.”

  Dave laughed. “You’re making too much of this.”

  Brendan took another swallow from his bottle of beer. “What would you think if you’d found her?”

  Instead of answering, Dave asked, “You know old Vance McAllister?”

  “Yeah, guy takes eccentric to a whole new level.”

  “My point exactly. If he were poor, either he’d be in jail or in a mental hospital. But he’s rich as Midas, so people call him eccentric.” Dave laughed and took a swallow of beer. “The lines blur between the two, you know. I’ve been around long enough to know better than to say anything is impossible.”

  “So you think I should believe her?”

  “If she lied to me, I’d be surprised. Thinking about it, she didn’t appear delusional either.” He shook his head. “No, I’d say she believes she came from 1845 Ireland. Blossom said her clothes fit that time. Deirdre speaks as if she’s from nineteenth century Ireland.” Dave raised his eyebrows then set down his beer. ”You know the saying—if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then....”

  “I get it, but I’m having a little trouble adjusting to the idea.” He finished his beer. “Mom will be wondering what happened to me tonight, so I’d better get home before she calls the sheriff.”

  “Don’t want her worried.” He rose as if to see Brendan out. “Tell her I’ll call her later.”

  Brendan smiled. “I imagine she’s expecting your call.”

  ***

  Deirdre couldn’t help blathering on and on about her first day at work. She’d had a wonderful time at the shop. “No one there seemed to think me odd or a witch because I know about herbs. And vitamins. Now I’m learning about them too. Blossom says I did fine, except I can’t answer the phone or make change yet. Sure and your money is that strange I can’t keep it all straight.”

  Blossom nodded. “She really is marvelous with people. Turned our most difficult customer into a kitten purring about Deirdre’s helpfulness and knowledge. It was amazing.”

  Brendan picked at his food. “That’s nice.”

  Deirdre didn’t believe he meant it. Perhaps he tired of hearing about her accomplishments and events at the shop. “How was your day?”

  He looked at her. “Interesting. Very eventful.”

  “What did you do, son?” Blossom asked.

  “I checked with my insurance agent and he agreed to replace the car right away.” He shrugged. “What else could he do with it reduced to a shell and a pile of ashes?” He looked at Deirdre. “I went to see Mark Staggs.”

  Blossom laughed. “You always seem so bored around him. I’m surprised you voluntarily visited him.”

  “You have to admit he can drone on for hours about genealogy and historical events.” He stood. “Mom, leave the dishes as they are and I’ll do them later. I want to show Deirdre something first. You, too, if you’re interested.”

  “Of course I’m interested. You knew my curiosity would be aroused before you asked, didn’t you?” Blossom stood and patted Deirdre’s arm. “Come on, dear, let’s see what he’s talking about, shall we?”

  Deirdre wondered, but she wasn’t as eager as Blossom to find out. She couldn’t help fearing Brendan would decide her too much trouble to have around. She realized today that he had become far too important to her. All day, no matter how trivial the incident, she couldn’t help thinking she wanted to tell Brendan about it. Then, at dinner, she’d nattered on and on and probably bored him to death.

  Brendan sat on the sofa and patted the place beside him. “Deirdre, sit here if you will. Mom, you sit on Deirdre’s other side.” He pulled out a sheet of paper, but didn’t unfold it. “I asked Mark to look up some old, old records for me. Remember when we looked at the internet on Mom’s computer?”

  She nodded.

  “There are internet sites, um places to look, where you can see copies of documents from all over the world.” Brendan unfolded the page and placed it on her lap. “Mark showed me the parish register from Ballymish. He printed this copy, which shows the death of Deirdre Dougherty.”

  A terrible chill seized her. “My own death record?”

  “Not many people have ever been able to read about their own death.” He pointed to a name. “See, there it is, halfway down
the page.”

  “I see...It says I fell off the cliff when my cottage caught fire and I panicked and ran.” Deirdre couldn’t stop her tears. She sniffed and brushed her eyes.

  Brendan slid his arm around her and patted her shoulder. Blossom held her hand and patted it.

  She fought for control, but she couldn’t cease sniveling. Accepting Brendan’s handkerchief, she dabbed her eyes. “Sorry, I never cry. Seeing my own passing described, even wrong as it is, set me back.”

  Blossom patted her hand. “Of course, dear. It must be a terrible shock to see your death written in an official document.”

  She nodded. “Kind of Father Padric, but not true at all. Sure and it must be he wanted me buried next to Ma and Da and that was his way of seeing it happen. No doubt the good man was told I’d killed myself.”

  The next line sent shivers of dread down her spine. She gasped and pointed at the name. “Do you see that. Eogan the younger died the same day. Mayhap he had it coming, for he was an evil man if ever there was one. Though it says here he fell while trying to save me, he wanted to pull me back so he could burn me as he had my wee cottage.”

  “Owen?” Brendan leaned closer and tapped the page. “No, look here it says Ee-oh-gan Ba-lo-er, not Owen.”

  “It’s the Gaelic, and is pronounced Owen Baylor.”

  Blossom said, “Son, isn’t that odd?”

  Deirdre asked, “Why?”

  “That’s the name of Brendan’s boss. Isn’t that strange they’d be the same?”

  A terrible panic seized Deirdre. “Your chief has the same name as the man who tried to kill me? And someone is trying to kill you.” She wrung her hands. “Brendan, I’m frightened for you more now than before.

  He hugged her shoulders. “It’s nothing, Deirdre. Just a coincidence.”

  She looked at Blossom and back at Brendan. “You said there were no coincidences, remember? Did this man’s folks come from Ireland?”

  “Well, yeah, as a matter of fact he mentioned his grandfather came from Ireland. But it’s not the same man you knew. Surely you can see that.”

  “Mayhap he’s a descendant, for Eogan left a son.”