“I can’t go on TV looking like this. Plus, I have nothing to say.”
“I told you and Dave about my past with Andrea, that’s enough for them to ask you things that can get twisted. You heard them in the parking lot.”
Dave met us on the dock next to his boat. He shook his head and cut his eyes to the end of L Dock where reporters stood, setting up to do live shots. He said, “I take it you didn’t hit your mouth on the roller-coaster safety bar. Nick, what the hell happened to you?”
I said, “We’ll tell you when we get out of sight of the media mob.”
“By default, you’re putting Ponce Marina on the national map. Next thing you know, after the theme parks, the Space Center, and the beaches, tourists buses will pull through this marina and the driver’s will point out that this is where Sean O’Brien spent weekends on his old boat coming up with ways to take out presidential contenders.”
“It all started when I saw Courtney Burke walking down a long and dangerous road.”
“And look where that road’s led you. Come aboard, gents. The proverbial defecation is hitting the fan.”
We followed Dave onto Gibraltar, and into the large salon, the boat’s tinted windows sure to prevent eyes and cameras from snooping. I sat in a canvas deck chair, Dave on his leather couch. Nick stood at the bar, an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel and pressed against his mouth, dark eyes filled with thoughts.
Dave said, “I’m not sure where to start. We have a media gang at the gate, all now aware that you fathered a child with the woman who might be the next first lady, and you and Nick come back bloodied after visiting Bandini’s camp. So, what happened?”
I filled him in on the events at the carnival, who the players were, and the message I sent to Bandini.
“You think Carlos Bandini will leave Courtney Burke alone?”
“Maybe. He could be looking to even the score for his brother’s death. Before Tony Bandini died, if he told his brother what Courtney said to him about how much she knew of the family’s operation, Carlos might try to silence her. Since they know Nick was the one who overheard Smitty and Barnes admit Lonnie was the victim of a Bandini hit, I wanted to try to diffuse that. So that’s why I put you on speakerphone and called you Jimmy. Harder to kill three people than one.”
Nick wrapped a fresh ice cube in another paper towel and applied it to his lip. He said, “I’ve seen some pretty fast guys in my life, but none quicker than my man, Sean. He touched the emergency button on his key remote and the second that Barnes looked away, Sean hit him so hard he fell like he’d been struck by lightning. Before his pistol could fall to the ground, Sean grabbed it and drew down on gator guy. The whole thing was over in three seconds.”
Dave shook his head. “It’s not over. It’s just beginning. Ranging from a carnival mob family to what may be the next first family. Sean, how’d the news media find out that you and Andrea had a child together?”
“I don’t know.”
Nick said, “It’s a damn good bet she never said anything to anybody.”
Dave nodded. “Not after twenty years of keeping it a secret. Logan’s opponents are making a lot of political hay out of this thing. It’ll be a hot topic in tomorrow night’s debates, too. Have you heard from Andrea?”
“No, and I doubt that I will. Outside of her parents, someone else must have known … someone who she trusted. When the video of Andrea and me hit YouTube, a ghost had to have come out of the woodwork.”
Dave said, “Somebody looking for fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Or a pile of money,” Nick said. “Sean, can you think of a close friend of Andrea’s at the time, somebody she might have confided in?”
“Yes. Twenty years ago her name was Susan Lehman. Dave, turn on one of the cable networks.”
32
Dave lifted the remote off the coffee table and pointed it at his 42-inch flat screen behind the bar. CNN was in the midst of a newscast. The anchorman finished a story about Syria and said, “Turning to news here at home, the uproar continues in the Republic Presidential Primary debates as front-runner, Senator Lloyd Logan, faces questions about his wife’s past, with new revelations coming forth that she had a daughter out of wedlock. Logan, a staunch opponent of abortion, told reporters that he defends his wife’s decision to give the baby up for adoption almost twenty years ago. In the meantime, Andrea Logan has had nothing to say publically about the situation. However, a woman who says she knew Andrea when she became pregnant, Susan Cohen, said that the former Andrea Hart never told her boyfriend at the time, a man by the name of Sean O’Brien, that she was carrying his child. It was O’Brien seen on the YouTube video with Mrs. Logan, deeply sobbing in a Starbucks, while her husband raised five-million dollars in contributions outside the door.”
The video cut to an interview. The lower third of the screen flashed her name: Susan Cohen, the former Susan Lehman. Blonde, early forties, owl eyes that seldom blinked. She said, “I knew Sean, and I knew Andrea. They were the perfect couple, really. After Andrea broke off the relationship with him, she was almost three months pregnant at the time, she never told him about the baby. When I asked her why, she just said it would make things more complicated. But in my heart-of-hearts, I believe Sean would have raised the baby by himself if he’d known about the child. It really wasn’t fair to him or the child.”
The images on screen cut to the Ponce Marina parking lot.
“Oh shit,” said Nick as he watched us get out of the Jeep.
The narrative connected with the video. “Sean O’Brien is a former homicide detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department. It’s reported he spent time in the first Gulf War, and he was the sharpshooter who was involved in taking out the al Qaeda sect in Jacksonville last year. So, how all of this will play out in Senator Logan’s bid for the White House, nobody knows. When asked for a comment, O’Brien had little to say.”
The image cut to a close-up of me with a microphone in my face when I said, “My thoughts have do with walking my dog. Now, excuse me.”
The news anchorman added, “If Sean O’Brien is a good caregiver for his dog, can it be assumed he would have been a good father had he known that his former girlfriend, the current wife of Senator Lloyd Logan, was pregnant twenty years ago?”
I looked at Dave, “Shut it off.”
Nick ran his tongue across his front teeth and said, “Lookin’ at the pictures of Andrea Logan on television, and lookin’ at you now Sean, I can see a resemblance in Courtney Burke’s face.”
I said nothing.
Dave clicked the button and the screen went to black. He said, “I wish I could turn all this media frenzy down. You said it all started when you found Courtney Burke walking down that dark road. If she’s your daughter … the daughter of Andrea Logan, too, and Courtney is arrested on murder charges … and it’s found out, the media frenzy is going to hit unimaginable heights. And then Senator Logan’s bid to become the next president of the United States comes to a screeching halt.”
I stood from the deck chair and stepped to one of the salon windows facing the main public dock. I could see the dock master shaking his head, arms crossed, speaking with reporters. He was trying to keep them off private property. How long would that last? I turned back to Dave and Nick. “There’s only one way to know if Courtney Burke is my daughter, and whether Andrea Logan is her biological mother. I need DNA samples from both. And I need to have mine analyzed.”
Dave looked at me over the glasses at the end on his nose. “There’s no way in hell that Logan’s people are going to let you within a city block of Andrea.”