Innocent Bystander

by Glenn Richards

  Innocent Bystander

  By Glenn Richards

  Copyright © 2015 by Glenn Richards

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  For my family…

  CHAPTER 1

  His mind a jumble of hope, desperation, and worry, Michael Burnett burst through the building’s main door and descended two steps into a chilly May evening. A commotion on the far side of the parking lot snared his attention. Lights from an ambulance and two police cruisers flickered across the dying twilight.

  He drifted closer. The ambulance sat adjacent to his silver Toyota Camry. He rested an unsteady palm on the hood of a BMW beside him. His heart skipped a beat, possibly two.

  From thirty yards away he watched an emergency medical technician lift a teenage girl’s body from the trunk of his Camry. The EMT made no attempt to revive her.

  Burnett leaned against the BMW’s hood for support. Then he crouched behind the bumper. Numbness radiated from his stomach.

  The pulsating lights of the ambulance and police cruisers created a hypnotic effect. The Beemer’s tinted windows further distorted an already unreal scene.

  A police officer barked commands into his vest mic. Three policemen cordoned off the area around the Camry. Another cop shoved back two students who’d pushed too close. The crowd swelled.

  Who was she? Who killed her? How’d she get in the trunk of my car? He’d met her two days ago, but the story she’d told was so absurd no one would have believed her. However, the fact that he had a motive, and the other unfortunate fact, that her body had just been pulled from his car, would make him suspect number one.

  Fingertips grazed his shoulder and jolted him back to reality. He sprung up and stood face to face with another student from the university. At that moment he couldn’t recall her name. “Hey,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Just got here.”

  She wandered off to join the crowd. Another wave of students rolled in from behind. The rumble of conversations grew. Smartphone cameras clicked and captured video.

  He hunched back down behind the BMW, his mind a swirl of questions. Watching students gather around him, he envisioned each one staring suspiciously at the crown of his head. He rose and backed through the incoming tide of gawkers. This magnified his uneasiness as the crowd surged in the opposite direction.

  He stopped. A curious thought struck him. He was ninety-nine percent sure he hadn’t murdered anyone. There are precious few things in life, he recalled one of his psychology professors stating, about which we can be one hundred percent certain. Besides, leaving the scene would make him look that much guiltier. He stood erect, determined to march up to the nearest officer and inform him that it was his car the dead girl’s body had been removed from.

  An instant later all the reasons not to notify the police swarmed his brain. The numbness he’d felt when he first arrived on the scene dissolved. His body shuddered, and his heart thumped as he made the most important, most difficult decision of his life—he would run. No longer would he be a thirty-two-year-old student who’d returned to college to get a degree in the field he loved. He would be a fugitive.

  Another cruiser barreled into the parking lot. No doubt the police had determined who owned the Camry. He tried to raise his left foot, but it felt like it was fused to the pavement. He had to consciously will his leg to take a step.

  Once again he retreated from the crime scene. He collided with a pair of students who’d just exited the building. One of them grabbed him. This one he knew well—twenty-two-year-old Emma Blankenship. They had a meeting in ten minutes with a PI they’d hired to locate the girl who’d been hauled from his car.

  “What’s going on?” Emma asked.

  He couldn’t speak.

  She stared at his face. Her expression soon mirrored his troubled look. “What?”

  “The cops just pulled a body from a car.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Moisture drained from his tongue and reemerged in his palms. “My car.”

  Emma’s troubled look transformed into grave concern. “Not her? Not the girl from Henri’s apartment?”

  His head bobbed once. Then he stared into her blue, water-filled eyes. He reached out and caressed her cheek. Never before had her soft, delicate features looked lovelier. His mouth opened, but no sound came.

  “What the hell’s going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But someone’s set me up.”

  “Who? Why?”

  He rifled through his memory but of course found no answers. He knew no one capable of such an act. Whoever was responsible had gone to a great deal of trouble.

  He inched toward the street. She clung to his elbow.

  “Don’t run,” she said.

  “I can’t stay.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “They’ll never believe me,” he said, and quickened his pace. “Besides, who knows what else they’ve done? My fingerprints on her body, murder weapon in my basement?”

  She clutched his wrist. “My father knows the best lawyers in New York. You’ll make bail.”

  The words rang hollow. He gnawed his lip. “We both know that won’t happen.”

  He passed the rim of the parking lot, Emma still coupled to his wrist. A steady stream of onlookers slowed their progress.

  One cop shouted to another and gestured to Burnett. The second man nodded and hollered for backup as he hurtled toward them.

  Burnett paused by a patch of dried grass abutting the main road. One foot on pavement, the other on grass, he faced her. “You haven’t done anything.”

  “Neither have you.” She freed his wrists.

  “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I need to know what’s going on.”

  “I swear on my life we’ll find out. And I will find out why someone set me up. But I can’t do that from a jail cell.”

  He knew she’d forced the smile that curled the corners of her lips. A lone tear slid down her left cheek.

  Two cops loomed in the distance. A third trailed close on their heels.

  Now he clasped her wrists. “You’ve done nothing. Tell them the truth. You hear me?”

  He couldn’t wait for a response. He released her and bounded across the street.

  Dusk had come and gone, and it became hard to see. He charged into a wooded park. H
e sped past a couple making out on a bench and blew by a gray-bearded man gulping from a paper-wrapped bottle. All three paused only an instant to glance at him, then returned to their priorities.

  He sprinted past an ornate fountain and down a gravel path. The soles of his feet ached. His muscles protested. Where was the rush of adrenaline designed to kick in at a time like this? No doubt about it, at thirty-two he was out of shape and felt ten years older. He lumbered another two hundred feet and stopped. Bent over, chest heaving, he listened for footsteps.

  What the hell’s going on? His mind echoed Emma’s question from moments ago. Still there were no answers.

  Footfalls cut through the chirping crickets. He guessed two people, maybe three. He crept farther along the path and disappeared behind a weeping willow. One thing had gone his way this evening—his tan windbreaker and khaki Dockers blended with the tree trunk.

  The footsteps stopped. Two male voices conducted a brief question and answer session, then resumed their advance. Sand and pebbles crackled beneath hard-soled shoes.

  The footsteps slowed, then sped up again. Soon he could no longer hear them. Reluctant to leave the relative safety of the willow, he grasped a low branch.

  The crickets ramped up their background noise, determined to drown out all other sounds.

  He tried to orient himself before darkness settled in. Nothing looked familiar. A hundred times he’d walked this park. Now he felt like he’d entered a foreign country.

  Through the trees he spotted the red and blue lights of a cruiser accelerating down a path. He bolted in the opposite direction. He ducked to avoid a tree-branch and stumbled over an exposed root. A jagged piece of rock tore his pant-leg and scraped his knee. He scrambled to his feet.

  A few yards ahead he located an asphalt path. Sporting only a slight limp, he tried to appear like any other visitor heading for an exit.

  A breeze from the north turned the evening colder. He massaged his clammy hands.

  What the hell’s going on? Nothing could pry the question from his brain. He demanded his mind supply a name. No matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t imagine anyone capable of framing him for murder. In fact, he couldn’t imagine anyone capable of orchestrating the madness of the past two days.

  He’d returned to school in the hope of learning how to extend the possible into the improbable. But what he’d experienced in recent days defied everything science had taught him. And now, with the chief architect of the insanity dead, what little firm ground that had remained felt like it had crumbled away.

  The dim outline of a person emerged from the darkness. He froze. To his right he could distinguish little. To his left waited what appeared to be an open field. Behind him determined voices bellowed their frustration.

  When he faced forward, the outline had vanished.

  “Who’s there?” he asked as loud as he dared.

  No response came.

  “Who?” he asked again.

  “Go,” a voice whispered.

  He staggered back two steps. Had a person spoken or had he imagined someone? His recent lack of sleep had begun to affect him.

  Clomping footsteps and angry voices closed in from behind.

  Desperation overpowered curiosity. He spun right and waded through a thicket of scrub brush. The farther into it he advanced, the denser it became. It almost brought him to a complete stop. Fear that the truth might forever remain a mystery spurred him on.

  At last he arrived at a clearing. A group of grungy teenagers ambled toward a fence enclosing the park. He scanned the area but saw no police. He scurried over and made an effort to blend in with the group.

  “How’s it going?” one of them asked.

  “Couldn’t be better,” Burnett said. “What happened? I saw half a dozen cops running around back there.”

  “Probably saw a couple guys smoking weed,” another one said with a wink.

  He nodded, not paying attention, and trailed the group over the fence.

  Once again his mind posed the unanswerable question: What the hell’s going on?

  CHAPTER 2

  Few fields of study, Burnett had noted, as he’d sat in the last row of a SUNY lecture hall two days earlier, have the potential to change the course of history the way physics does. Politicians start wars, but physicists split the atom. Astronomers gaze at the moon, but physicists guided men to its surface.

  The true purpose of his observation, an attempt to distract himself, failed miserably. A glance at his watch revealed class would end in twenty minutes. His fingers drummed the fold-down table’s faux wood.

  Henri Laroche, his good friend, had not yet arrived. An eccentric genius by most definitions, Henri had missed three of the past four classes.

  The semester nearly over, his friend needed to ace the test today or would likely fail the course. His only other chance involved an extra credit assignment the instructor had offered the class. All the students were required to do was write a paper on what they believed would be the next great breakthrough in physics.

  Half the students in Advanced Physics 301 were on the verge of failing. Burnett maintained a solid B average, his average in all the classes he attended, so the thought of additional work held little interest for him.

  The wall clock’s relentless second hand beckoned his attention. Seventeen minutes remained until the end of class. Few people besides Henri could finish the test in such a brief period of time.

  The completed exam in hand, Burnett settled back into his chair with a sigh. He shifted in his seat, unable to find a comfortable position. He’d reached his present height of six-two his junior year of high school, and since then, he’d reached the conclusion that the modern world had been designed by people under six feet.

  Gazing about the lecture hall only fueled his discomfort. It reminded him that at thirty-two he was at least ten years older than everyone else in the class. Several people insisted he looked a good five years younger than his age, even ten years when he dressed the part. And while it was true many people returned to school later in life, much later than thirty-two in fact, it was just bad luck that there wasn’t another student in the room over the age of twenty-two.

  Ten minutes before the end of class, Henri Laroche stumbled into the lecture hall. The instructor did not notice his arrival. Henri trudged up the stairs on the left side of the hall and flopped into the seat beside him.

  What Burnett saw stunned him.

  He hadn’t seen Henri for several days. The young man’s pale, drawn face gazed blankly forward. Scarlet lines surrounded his hazel eyes. His shoulder-length, auburn hair probably hadn’t been washed nor combed in a week and his clothes didn’t match. Burnett’s anxiety surged when he noticed his friend, who hadn’t even acknowledged him, was shaking.

  “You all right?” Burnett asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Henri said.

  “You missed the test.”

  “Christ, was that today?”

  Burnett nodded and eyed him. This was far worse than Henri ever looked after a weekend in Manhattan. One Friday a month his friend would ride the Metro-North to Grand Central Station. Henri would visit the East Village and not return until late Monday morning. He seldom spoke about what he did in the city, but from what Burnett could gather, he would spend much of the weekend at an eccentric cafe with other people whose IQs sat comfortably north of one-ninety.

  No, he suspected the reason behind Henri’s appearance was far more disquieting. And it unnerved him because he’d witnessed similar changes in himself.

  The number of questions Burnett needed to ask doubled, then tripled. Seated in the lecture hall was not the ideal time to ask them. But as his anxiety level multiplied, so did his need for answers.

  “Get any sleep last night?” Burnett asked.

  “Not now.”

  “Just nod or shake your head.”

  Henri offered a sharp nod.

  “What about the nightmare?” Burnett asked.

  “Later,�
�� Henri said through pursed lips. He stood and raised his hand.

  Professor Connor Desmond, seated at his polished metal desk, spotted Henri at the rear of the auditorium.

  “Mr. Laroche,” Desmond said. He rose and stepped to the side of his desk. He stood ramrod straight, then bent over to smooth out the lone wrinkle in his pants.

  Desmond marched up three steps. With his thumb and index finger he gave his neatly trimmed beard an arrogant stroke. He placed his hands on the back of an unoccupied seat and stared at Henri with deep-set brown eyes. “May I ask why you even bothered showing up today? This class is over in five minutes. Even you can’t finish the test in such a short period of time.”

  “Actually, it’s over in seven minutes.”

  Desmond took a moment to note Henri’s condition. “Perhaps if you spent a little less time at the local pub you might be able to get here on time. And since this is an afternoon class, you should be able to sleep it off by now.”

  Despite the fact that he loved to occasionally embarrass students in front of the class, Burnett did not think Desmond was an evil man. He just had a strict set of rules he demanded all his students obey. He would have made a good teacher at a private elementary school, Burnett often mused.

  At least Desmond taught the class the way it was supposed to be taught. It seemed too many teachers these days wanted to be the stars of the classroom. Rather than simply teach, they made the class about themselves, touting their latest accomplishments or publications.

  “Okay,” Desmond said to the class, “if you think this chapter was hard, wait until you read the next one. We will be studying the work of one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of the past half century, Stephen Hawking. But as we will discover, even the most gifted physicists can make glaring mistakes.”

  Henri yawned and lurched to his feet. He faced his friend. “Meet me at Charlie’s Place in ten minutes.”

  Burnett nodded, though he knew the last thing Henri needed was a drink.

  “Mr. Laroche,” Desmond said in his usual even tone. “May I see you a minute?”

  “Better make that half-an-hour,” Henri said to Burnett. “Or get a head start if you want.”

  In thirty minutes it would be 6:45. As much as he and Henri had to discuss, he hoped their conversation would be brief. He needed to get to the hospital and see his father before visiting hours ended at 8:00.