Rock Point (Sharpe & Donovan) Read Online Free Page B

the people of little Rock Point, Maine.

Chapter 4
    Finian had the car stop at Bracken Distillers, located in a restored seventeenth-century distillery just outside Killarney. He asked the driver to wait for him. Instead of going into the main building, Finian walked around to the back, then down a hill to a roofless stone shed he and Declan often talked about turning into a health club for employees. This was where, in March, Finian had walked with Becan Kennedy. Finian had assumed Becan, a carpenter who’d worked on many old buildings, had wanted to give his opinion on the shed’s potential as a health club, but that notion had soon been dismissed.
    Becan had requested Finian meet him in the same spot.
    The partial walls and foundation of the old shed were covered in vines and moss, shaded by an oak tree. Becan eased out from behind the remains of the stone chimney. He was a thin, nervous man, no more than forty himself, in terrible shape despite his work as a carpenter. He had sagging, pallid skin and watery blue eyes that didn’t connote midnight romances or quiet seas but, rather, a tormented soul. He wore nondescript jeans and a colorless T-shirt, and his trail shoes were crusty with dried mud. Finian hadn’t changed back into his clerical suit—he would in the morning, before his flight—but Becan recognized him from his work at the distillery, before Sean Murphy had invited Finian to Declan’s Cross.
    Without Becan Kennedy, Finian thought, he wouldn’t have been at the O’Byrne House Hotel in March and met Father Callaghan, and he wouldn’t be on his way to Maine.
    “I was named for a saint,” Becan said, tossing a cigarette into the mud.
    Finian nodded. “So was I. There are a number of Irish saints named Finian, but the one I’m named for served here in the southwest. Do you know about Saint Becan?”
    “He was a better man than I, no doubt.”
    “He founded a monastery in Kilbeggan.”
    Becan shifted from one foot to another; he was restless, distracted. “I only know Kilbeggan whiskey,” he said with a snort.
    “Saint Becan lived in the sixth century—at least a century after Saint Patrick.” Finian kept his voice steady, hoping to ease the younger man’s nervousness. “He was a religious hermit.”
    “Some days I’d like to be a hermit,” Becan said. “Just skip the religious part.”
    “Why did you ask me here, Becan?”
    He gave a crooked grin. “Not to discuss a lap pool in back of the health club. You know the guards are after me, don’t you?”
    The guards. Gardai. The Irish police. A certain detective Finian knew would want to be here now, and wouldn’t be happy that his friend had come to meet Becan Kennedy alone.
    Finian made no response. He felt his hike with his brother in the backs of his legs. He was in good shape but nonetheless hoped the exercise would help him sleep on the flight tomorrow.
    “I talked to your detective friend in March,” Becan said. “He tried to get you to give him my name, didn’t he? But you didn’t. You’re a priest. You can’t.”
    “What I’m wondering, Becan, is why you don’t tell the guards who you are. They can help you.”
    Becan withdrew a pack of cigarettes from a back pocket. “You were decent to me.” He tapped out a cigarette and pointed it at Finian. “You understand that men make mistakes.”
    “Spiritually or—”
    “All kinds.” He was nervous, fidgety, his eyes not meeting Finian’s as he spoke. “I’m afraid, Father.”
    “Not of the guards,” Finian said.
    “Maybe. I don’t know. I told your garda friend some things, about what I’m into. Then I got scared. I don’t know what to do, Father. I don’t trust anyone—except you.”
    “Did you come here alone?”
    “Yeah, sure. Who’d come with me, you know? To see a priest?”
    Finian had no answer for that question. “You didn’t invite anyone else to join us?”
    “God, no. Not the lot I’m with.”
    “And no one followed you?”
    Becan stuck his