A False Dawn (31 page)

TWO

Sean
O’Brien stood on the worn cypress wood of his screened-in back porch and watched lightning pop through the low-lying clouds above the Ocala National Forest.  Each burst hung in the bellies of the clouds for a few seconds, the charges exploding and fading like fireflies hiding in clusters of purple grapes.  He could smell rain falling in the forest and coming toward the St. Johns River as the breeze delivered the scent of jasmine, wet oak, and honeysuckle.   

Thunder rumbled in the distance.  The rolling noise, the burst and fade of light reminded O’Brien of the times he witnessed night bombing in the first Gulf War, but that was many miles and years in the past.  He deeply inhaled the cool, rain-drenched air.  The sound of frogs reached a competing crescendo when the first drops began to hit the oak leaves.  The river was like black ink, white caps rolling across its dark surface

The temperature dropped and the wind picked up, bringing a wall of rain across the river and through the thick limbs of old live oaks, soaking the gray beards of Spanish moss.  Within a few seconds, moss hung from the limbs like the wet fleece of lamb’s wool caught in the rain and stained the shade of tarnished armor. 

O’Brien sipped a cup of black coffee and listened to the rain tap the tin roof over the porch.  The old house was built in 1945, constructed from river rock, Florida cypress, and pine.  Wood too tough for termites, nails or even hurricanes.  The house sat high above the river on the shoulder of an ancient Indian mound.  O’Brien bought the home after his wife died from ovarian cancer fifteen months ago.  Following her death, he had a fleeting romance with the bottle and the genies it released in his subconscious.

O’Brien looked at Sherri’s framed photograph standing on a wicker table near his porch chair.  Her smile was still as intoxicating as a summer night, fresh, vibrant and so full of life.  So full of hope.  He deeply missed her.  He set his cell phone by her picture.

Max barked.

O’Brien looked down at Max, his miniature dachshund.  “I know you have to pee.  We have two options, I can let you go out by yourself and risk an owl flying off with you, or I can grab an umbrella and try to keep us both dry while you do your thing.”

Max sniffed and cracked a half bark.  She trotted over to the screen door and looked back at O’Brien through eager brown eyes.   

“Okay, never delay a lady from her trip to the bathroom.”  O’Brien reached for an umbrella in the corner, lifted Max under his arm like a football, and walked out the door.  He set her down near the base of a large live oak in this yard.   Sherri had bought the dog as a puppy when O’Brien was spending long days and nights on a particularly extreme murder investigation.  She named the dog Maxine and allowed her to sleep in their bed, something O’Brien discovered after he had returned home one night, exhausted, awakening before dawn to find Maxine lying on her back, snuggled next to his side, snoring.  In a dream-like stupor, he sat up, momentarily thinking a big rodent had climbed onto the bed.  But Max had looked at him too lovingly through chestnut brown eyes.  They’d made their peace.  And now it was only the two of them. 

He had sometimes wondered if Sherri had known she was ill before she was officially diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she had bought Max for him.  Maybe she knew a ten pound dachshund could show a six-two, two hundred pound man a softer, more compassionate side of his own self.  Sherri had that kind of wisdom, he thought.

O’Brien held the large umbrella over Max as she squatted, the rain thumping the umbrella, the frogs chanting competing choruses. 

A foreign sound sliced through the air like a bad note.

O’Brien could hear his cell phone ringing from the table on his back porch. “Ignore it, Max,” he said.  “Go with the flow.  No need getting a bladder infection.  If it’s important, they’ll call back.”

Max bolted from underneath the umbrella and sniffed fresh tracks left in the dirt near an orange tree O’Brien had recently planted.  He watched rain pooling in the tracks.  O’Brien knelt down and placed his hand over one imprint.  He let out a low whistle.  “Florida panther, Max, looks like it was running.”  O’Brien’s eyes followed the tracks until they were lost in the black.  Max growled.

“That tough dog growl would certainly scare a panther.  Not many of them left.  But boy do we have the black bears in that old forest.  That’s why you, young lady, have to eat the leftovers.  We don’t need bears rummaging through the garbage cans.  Coons are bad enough.”

The cell phone rang again.

O’Brien stood and looked up towards the house and porch.  “Come on, Max, let’s see who is it that needs our immediate attention.”

Max sniffed the damp air, sneezed and followed O’Brien up the sloping yard.  She climbed the wet steps and stood on the porch to shake the rainwater out of her fur.

O’Brien picked up has cell at the last ring.  “Hello.”

Nothing.

“Maybe it went to voice-mail, Max.”  O’Brien looked at the caller ID.

Not a good sign.

The caller was a close friend of his.  Father Callahan had been there for him when Sherri died. 

And now maybe the priest needed him.