Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [106]
Sara took in the raw look of self-recrimination on Kerney’s face. For some reason he’d put himself under a microscope and come up sorely lacking as a parent. “What happened in Santa Fe, Kerney?”
“Patrick got pushed around by a bully at the preschool. When I got there, the worst of it was over, but all he wanted was you, his real home, and his real friends.”
“Oh, Kerney, of course he would want his mother,” Sara said. “He’s only three.”
Kerney shook his head. “It can’t be that easily rationalized, and I can’t stand the thought of you in Iraq and Patrick in Montana. I’d feel terrible. He stays with me. I’ll call Johnny Jordan in the morning and tell him I won’t be going to the Bootheel to work on the movie.”
“Maybe the two of you should go,” Sara said.
Kerney looked away and stared stubbornly out the living room window.
“It might help the both of you keep your minds off things,” she added.
“Not possible. Besides, who’d care for him while I’m working?”
“I’m sure the film company provides tutors for the child actors and nannies for the children of the stars. I’d be a lot happier knowing the two of you were off having some fun. Do it for me.”
He switched his gaze from the window to Sara. “You can’t be serious.”
She met his stubborn blue eyes with a smile. “I am. And when you get back from the Bootheel, buy Patrick his pony.”
Kerney’s eyes softened. “Are those my orders?”
“If you please.”
The week ended in a rush. Movers came to pack and box, the realtor showed the house to prospective buyers, and a charity sent a truck for the donations. Kerney sold Sara’s SUV to a dealer and rented a car for their last two days together. On Friday morning they got up early and Kerney drove her to Fort Belvoir, where he and Patrick spent a hour with her at the hospitality center before she had to leave for her final block of instruction and then a flight to Baghdad.
He watched her crisply walk away, smile over her shoulder, throw a kiss, and wave. He threw a kiss back, smiling as brightly as he could, holding on tightly to Patrick’s hand to keep him from running after her. He thought about roadside bombs, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, snipers, and shrapnel, and prayed that no harm would come to her.
Patrick cried and tugged to free himself from Kerney’s grasp. He picked him up, wiped the tears away, and hugged him tightly. “It’s just you and me again, sport,” he whispered in his son’s ear as Sara disappeared from view.
Patrick sniffled and wrapped his arms tightly around Kerney’s neck.
Chapter Eleven
The morning after his interrogation of George Spalding, Hugh Fitzmaurice prepared his reports and submitted them to the district court. At the proceeding later in the day the judge denied Spalding bail and remanded him, at the request of the prosecution, to Cloverhill Prison.
Feeling pleased about it all, Fitzmaurice took the afternoon off and spent the remainder of the day on the putting green at the Rathfarnham golf course near his house, until it was time for Edna to come home from work.
After a lovely weekend capped by a leisurely Sunday motor trip to visit his sister and her family in the town of Trim, Fitzmaurice returned to work on Monday to find that the Spalding case had been turned upside down. Someone had retained a top-flight Dublin solicitor to represent Spalding. The solicitor had visited with the attorney general on his client’s behalf and asked that the charges be dropped, arguing that Spalding’s confession had been coerced and subterfuge had been used to compel him to make false accusations against Thomas Carrier.
Fitzmaurice also found out that other cunning machinations were afoot. The Americans and the Canadians had joined forces and proposed to the minister of justice that if the extraditions were expedited, Spalding would be allowed to plead guilty to desertion from the U.S. Army, sentenced to thirty days incarceration in