Monague O'Hara Paranormal Detective

Ms Sullivan was only a tiny wee thing, about five foot two or so tall and lightly built.

“Well Mr O’Hara, what is your answer ?. Are you prepared to sign. Unlike frauds like you, I have a real job and would like to get back to it.” At this point I had worked out my natural Irish wit and charm was not going to work on her.

“I’ll sign,” I said. At this she opened her briefcase and pulled out a document.

When I indicated to her that I wanted to borrow her pen, “humph” and another icy stare was my reward.

Ms Sullivan carefully checked I had signed and dated everything correctly, then asked to see some identification, carefully checked that it was all correct, demanded her pen back, then closed her briefcase.

“We will go over there to that quiet corner for a preliminary chat.”

On the way over she continued. “Mr O’Hara I will demand absolute confidentially on every thing we discuss. There are only three people permitted to have any knowledge of anything that passes between us. You can know, I can know, and my father can know. If you break this trust I will make sure you will lose everything you own, and you will come practically unemployable.”

Little does she know due to my family’s influence, how unemployable I already am in my chosen profession, thought Monty, at this comment.

The conservative English aristocrat part of me screamed to not be stupid, no good can come out of this job. The devil may care Irish gypsy part of me screamed at me to not be a big chicken. Taking down this little lawyer will be fun.

Once, seated in the quiet corner, Ms Sullivan continued to lecture me. She informed me the reason for this extreme secrecy. Her father, Frank Sullivan was the wealthy CEO of a major investment company, and in her words,

" The slightest hint he has gone for all this paranormal crap and all will think he has lost his marbles. The whole of the investments, shares, and stocks runs on large amounts of hot air, emotions, and confidence. One whisper heard in the market that my father has gone crazy, and fallen in with this paranormal crap, he will lose the trust of those that have placed their monies in his care and his investment company will collapse overnight. O’Hara, I am no fool, and I suspect underneath that intellectual mumbo-jumbo screen you put up, you don’t really believe in this mythology crap, either. My father may be loosing his marbles, but I don’t want that to be common knowledge. He has got it into his head that he has accidentally come across something paranormal and has inadvertently disturbed it, whatever it is, he thinks he has imagined I need someone like you to either convince him it is nothing or that you have made it go away. The reason I allowed him to hire you is because you are not from here. The local fake paranormal snake oil merchants would want to turn this into a bit of free advertising, appear on all the talk-back shows. If you can do this for me, I will make it worth your time. Just make it all go away for my father, and you will receive a good payment, provided that is just between you and me.”

Making this trip pay looks like being more straight forward than I was expecting.

Ms Sullivan then gave me a brief history of this branch of the Sullivan family since their arrival in the US. They were some of the lucky ones who escaped the Great Famine 1845 to 1849. They landed in New York in 1850 with two less in the family as they died on the short trip across the Atlantic. One was the grandmother, the other, one of the children. They landed with little more than the clothes on their backs and a determination to survive.

Over each successive generation the family grew a little stronger and a little richer. Now they were a lot richer. Frank Sullivan was worth a little over one billion dollars. In the investment game Frank was credited with having the Midas touch, everything Frank became involved with turned to gold.

Ms Sullivan again reinforced the importance of keeping his recent obsession with the paranormal, one murmur, one whisper in the market, everyone would think Frank had lost his marbles. Ms Sullivan considered it was a possibility Frank actually was loosing his marbles, this whole paranormal crap was just a way some exploited old myths and legends to part a few fools from their wealth.

“Of course Mr O’Hara, in this field of parting a fool from their wealth, you would have a greater knowledge than me.” She added sarcastically at the end.

Ms Sullivan then went on to let Monty know how this recent obsession her father has with the paranormal had started up. He had gone down into the basement of the family mansion to look for a bunch of old papers in one of the old archives that had been in storage down there. On his way out an old chest sitting in one corner of the basement caught his eye, so he went over to have a closer look. Thinking about it he can sort of remember seeing this chest before, when he was a young child. His grandfather, who was with him at the time, he thinks, told him to leave it alone. It was something special that had come out with the family from the old country. Curiosity had got the better of him, so he opened it to look inside. That is when her father’s obsession with the paranormal started. Monty suggested that he should be taken out to the family mansion to have a look at it. Once, he had seen it, he could then start to come up with some sort of story to make it all go away.

So now two days later Ms Sullivan collected Monty from his hotel and had brought him out to the mansion. Monty, Gloria, and Frank were now standing in front of the chest. Monty without the luxury of proper tests or any information about the chest had the feeling it was a quite ancient object. It was something he had never seen before not in any university archive or museum.

As, part of his intense studies in his education, he had spent a lot of time in these sorts of places. There was much writing and symbols all over the thing, but it was not one of the ancient languages he had encountered in the past. Monty took out his phone and took several pictures of the thing, especially the words and symbols, telling his clients he had not quite seen anything the same as this chest before, so a bit of research was required.

At the completion of taking the pictures they went back upstairs to one of the sitting rooms to talk about the chest. On the journey back to his hotel Gloria informed him his professional charlatan performance was quite impressive, he was an actor good enough to win an Oscar, or as we were in New York, a Tony.

You had it all down fear, surprise, concern, uneasy in its presence. If did not know you are a fake or believed this paranormal bullshit you would have taken me in.

I thanked her for the compliment, not letting her know the truth, more amazing by me being a total non-believer in this paranormal crap. It was not all an act. That thing in the basement put the shits up me. I felt very uncomfortable around it.