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It was small, but sunlit, and spacious enough for some basic institutional furniture and, of course, a TV, which a very old, very frail man was staring at from his elevated position in a hospital bed.
“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Toole,” the nurse boomed, getting his attention.
After a second or two, the man’s beady blue eyes shifted slowly to hers, and his wrinkled eyelids appeared to be dropping from more than just old age.
“He just had his afternoon meds,” the nurse explained quietly, “so he should be nice and calm for ya.”
Clearly.
“Mr. O’Toole, this is your niece, Darby Donovan. She came by to say hello. Isn’t that nice?”
Dropping her voice to a normal volume again, she added, “Don’t be scared, love. This one’s harmless. He just has trouble grasping reality sometimes, which, honestly, might be a blessing these days.”
I nodded in understanding and held her haunted stare, but it only lasted a second before she turned and headed for the door.
“There’s a red panic button on the wall by the bed,” she added from the narrow entryway. “Press it if ya need anything.”
The door closed with an ominous, automated click, and I suddenly found myself locked in a room with a drugged psychiatric patient in the middle of an active war zone.
I probably should have been concerned about my safety, but my thoughts were split between needing to find out what was in this man’s head and worrying about what was going through Damien’s.
My stomach soured as guilt ate away at it, but I pushed that aside as well. There would be plenty of time to feel my grief and my remorse on the train back to Glenshire. Right now, I needed to focus. Everything I’d come here for was on the other side of those cloudy, confused eyes.
“Hello, mister—I mean, Detective O’Toole. My name is—”
“Christ almighty, it took ya long enough.” His wiry white eyebrows furrowed as an angry spark of recognition flicked across his face.
“I’m sorry?”
“Ya should be. Leave an old man waiting like this, rottin’ in this godforsaken place. I was beginning to think you were never comin’.”
“I, em …”
“So where to?”
“Excuse me?”
“Heaven or hell? What’s it gonna be?”
My heart sank. The man wasn’t coherent enough to exchange basic pleasantries, let alone tell me what I needed to know. I’d come all this way, risked my life, betrayed Damien’s trust for absolutely nothing.
“You’re not gonna tell me where I’m goin’? Why the hell did they send you? They shoulda sent yer ma. She was less of a cunt.”
“My ma?”
“She woulda sold me Da’s house when he died, but, nooo, the old kook had to go and leave it to you.”
Darby.
Eamonn wasn’t incoherent. What he was saying made perfect sense, if I were his dead niece who’d come to escort him into the afterlife.
That was it. That was my ticket into the vault of his mind.
“With all due respect, Uncle,” I said as loudly but sweetly as possible, “I would advise against calling me a cunt when the fate of your eternal soul has yet to be decided.”
“Wh-wh-what’s that?” he sputtered, sitting up straighter in his remote-controlled bed. “Yet to be decided?”
“That’s correct, dear Uncle. The angels selected me to conduct your judgment personally, due to our … unfinished business. They are not happy about the lack of justice that was served following my murder.”
