Innocent Bystander

by Glenn Richards

  “Yes,” she answered before he’d finished the question.

  “Do you really know him?”

  “You want more money? That it? Three times your regular pay’s not enough?”

  Mr. Frank shook his head, clearly disappointed with her.

  She braced for a fatherly scolding. When none came, she asked, “What, then?”

  “Do you really know him?” he repeated, a jarring emphasis on the last two words.

  “I know two things. He was Henri’s best friend, and he did not kill that girl.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re doing. Just tell me where he is and I won’t bother you again for the rest of your life. Deal?”

  “I’ve been following the news about this case. And your friend Burnett. If half the things they’re saying about him are true, he’s a bad guy.”

  “Then whatever you heard is wrong.”

  “The police think he did it, the reporters think he did it, and—”

  “I know exactly what the police think,” Emma said. “I just spent two fun-filled hours with them.”

  “And to be honest, I think he did it.”

  She took a moment to process his confession.

  “I can’t afford to lose my license again,” he said.

  When it clicked in her mind, the invisible punch nearly floored her. At first she couldn’t speak. The words stuck in her throat. “You … you told them? The cops?”

  He did not need to reply, his expression said it all—the police were on their way to arrest him.

  She’d handed him to the authorities. Burnett would go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, the guilty party would remain free, and the truth about Henri’s death might forever remain shrouded in haze. Her arms and legs tingled. She set her jaw. “How could you? How could you tell them?”

  “If he’s not guilty, the truth’ll come out. Then both of you can get on with your lives.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Your father’s on his way here right now.”

  “You told him?”

  “You’re not being rational.”

  “Fuck rational! And fuck you!” She stomped to the side of his desk and glowered at him. “Tell me where he is.”

  Mr. Frank appeared startled by her tone, but didn’t flinch. He glowered back.

  Her features softened. “When you talked to my father, did he tell you he insisted I start tae kwon do classes when I was ten?”

  Frank snickered. Then he shook his head with an exaggerated swing. “Should he have?”

  She sauntered around to the front of the desk. “Did he happen to mention I got suspended my junior year of high school for beating the shit out of a boy who wouldn’t stop hitting on me?”

  Frank maintained his brave face as she sidled up beside him. She waited. A bead of sweat oozed through the pores in his forehead. She could almost feel his muscles tighten.

  “I have a second-degree black belt,” she said. “You know what that means?”

  He shook his head, still defiant.

  “It means you might want to reconsider.”

  Emma stood motionless beside him. She twitched. He launched out of his chair. When he realized she was still standing quietly beside him, he sighed with relief.

  Then Emma seized him and in a single, fluid motion deposited him onto the hardwood floor. She positioned her low-heeled Nine West sandal above his stomach. His body secure beneath her foot, she yanked open the center drawer of his desk. She rifled through a stack of papers. None had Burnett’s name anywhere.

  Mr. Frank grabbed her sandal, twisted it, and slid out from underneath. With his right hand he reached for the desk and heaved himself to his knees; with his left he ripped open the bottom drawer and snatched a pistol from beneath a notebook. Before he could aim it, she wrapped an arm around his neck. She gripped the pistol with her free hand and applied further pressure to his throat.

  “You’re choking me,” he gurgled.

  Emma jerked him to his feet. She shoved him against the desk as he strained to free his gun hand. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Iris near the door. The cat was sitting casually beside a scratching tree and staring at her again. At that moment she almost sensed the feline urging her on. For an instant she smiled at the thought.

  He dropped the pistol. She kicked it across the floor and freed her hostage. He hit the hardwood with a loud crack.

  With his left hand he reached across his body and touched his right elbow. “I think you broke my arm.”

  She flung open a second drawer and ripped out another stack of papers. “Maybe you’ll think twice before double-crossing someone.”

  Mr. Frank extended his left arm beneath the desk. When he retracted it, sunlight glinted off the tip of the silver letter opener in his hand.

  * * *

  “Freud never had a dream like this,” Burnett said to himself as he sat at Clara’s computer. Sigmund Freud had characterized dreams as a form of wish fulfillment. To the best of Burnett’s knowledge he had no desire, conscious or unconscious, to see the major cities of the world nuked.

  Weary of reading Desmond’s peer reviews, he’d turned his attention to dreams and dream interpretation. As with countless other subjects, the Internet boasted an abundance of information on both topics.

  His research had proven futile. Since dreams were highly symbolic, everyone had different theories on how to decipher each component. From Freud and Jung, all the way to the more modern ideas of Ann Faraday and Wallace Clift, no one had been able to provide him with the insight he needed.

  Common elements existed across all cultures, but this dream appeared to be unique with no straightforward interpretation. At least the precise repetition of events was unique—the high-pitched whistle, the ICBM arcing overhead, the blinding flash of light and the mushroom cloud, followed by the disembodied souls blaming him for their demise.

  He’d also spent a good deal of time researching nightmares in particular. Recurring nightmares, he’d learned, were not uncommon. Typically they were associated with strong emotions and stress, as Dr. Rosenstein had mentioned.

  As to why he would have the same nightmare every night, even with the different locations, that was something he could find no credible information about. Most articles on the subject had been penned by psychics and clairvoyants. Not only were they unhelpful, but he was skeptical about their accuracy.

  Frustrated by his inability to obtain any useful information, he returned to Desmond’s biography on the SUNY webpage. He raised his index finger to click on a link when the telephone rang.

  Burnett sprang from the chair. On the fifth ring the answering machine picked up. Clara’s outgoing message played, and he felt his hands tighten into fists. Then Emma’s voice cried out: “Get out of there! The police know where you are! Get out of there now. Meet me at Henri’s favorite restaurant.”

  He bolted for the door and flung it open. Flashing lights loomed in the distance.

  He charged across the parking lot. At the main avenue he spun left and sprinted down the street. He ran without considering the most direct route to his destination.

  The orange-yellow sun hung low, but night remained more than an hour away. After eight blocks his legs tired. He maintained the same pace, unwilling to slow until he’d put as much distance between himself and the condo as possible.

  Squealing tires spooked him. He swung his head. A burgundy sedan fishtailed around the corner.

  He jogged toward the nearest intersection. Though not dressed for running, he hoped if anyone saw him he would be considered just another jogger. As he trotted past a stop sign, he glanced up at the name of the cross street.

  He debated which route to follow to the restaurant. The most direct path would lead him through a busy part of town. After a minute he settled on a route that, though circuitous, would most likely guide him to his destination without encountering any police.

  CHAPTE
R 23

  Detective Mayweather stood in Clara Potts’s living room, his eyes locked on her computer screen. He’d checked the websites Burnett had visited, and it left him more confused than when he’d arrived.

  Farrow paced back and forth beside the answering machine. For the third time he played Emma’s message. When it finished, he backhanded the device off the table.

  Two uniformed cops scoured the room for clues. Farrow approached Mayweather.

  “What’s he been up to?”

  “Researching one of his professors,” Mayweather replied. “Connor Desmond. His physics teacher.”

  “I don’t get it. Burnett goes to him for help. He calls 911. Now Burnett sticks around and reads up on him.”

  “Based on the quantity of information he’s looked at, I’d say he’s been at it for hours.”

  Farrow cocked his head. “Has he been reading up on anyone else?”

  “No. But he spent a great deal of time doing research on dream interpretation.”

  “What? Any idea why?”

  Mayweather shook his head.

  “Just when I thought this case couldn’t get any stranger,” Farrow said. He studied the computer. The screen still displayed Professor Desmond’s photograph and biography from the SUNY website. “Maybe he suspects this guy’s got something to do with the girl’s murder.” Doubt filled his voice.

  “So he didn’t go to him for help.”

  “Perhaps,” Farrow said. He became silent. The silence persisted for nearly half a minute. “Perhaps he’s trying to set up his teacher.”

  “Why?”

  “Burnett believed someone was trying to frame him. What if he’s the one trying to frame someone else for what he did?”

  “Possible,” Mayweather said. He didn’t buy that scenario and sensed his partner didn’t either. “Then why go talk to him?”

  “I don’t know. Plant evidence? Show me one goddamn thing about this case that makes sense.”

  Nothing came to mind.

  “In the meantime,” Farrow said, “find out everything you can about this Connor Desmond.”

  * * *

  Burnett stood in an alley separating Emile’s Bistro from a children’s clothing store. As he waited, trying to fathom how the police had discovered his location, and perhaps more important, how Emma knew, his head throbbed. The near constant stress had taken a toll on him. He prayed it wouldn’t progress into a migraine. Imitrex, he knew, would be hard to come by. Sometimes a couple Tylenol or Motrin would do the trick if he caught it early enough, but what had started as a minor background ache at Clara’s condo had increased tenfold. He needed to stop it before the pounding began.

  Burnett felt a secret gladness that Emma was on her way to meet him. Since he’d been so quick to confess this feeling, perhaps it wasn’t such a secret. What he found more difficult to confess were his shifting feelings toward her. Poor Henri hadn’t even been buried, and his long submerged attraction to her clawed for the surface. How could it not? Half the guys at SUNY had been ready to pounce at the first hint of genuine trouble.

  Focus, Michael. You’ve got important things to do, dammit, like staying out of jail.

  No doubt the police were searching for Emma’s Leaf. It would be dangerous for her to remain in one place too long. Perhaps she’d been parked, but had to leave since his trek here had taken far longer than it should have.

  An odd-shaped vehicle braked in front of the bistro. It veered onto a dark side street and crawled along at five miles an hour. When it stopped near him, he spotted Emma at the wheel.

  She motioned for him to enter. He did, and she sped down the street as he slammed the door.

  “It’s my fault,” she said, refusing to meet his stare. “I led them right to you.”

  “What happened?”

  She recounted how she’d hired the PI to locate him and how he’d double-crossed her. He listened and nodded.

  “I appreciate your desire to help,” he said. “Truth is, I need it.”

  “Don’t you see? I blew your perfect hiding place. I almost got you caught.” Still she refused to face him.

  He knew any attempt to make her feel better would be dismissed. The tension in the car escalated. He decided to change the subject. “May I ask you a question?”

  At last she turned to him.

  “I was just curious,” he said in a light-hearted manner. He made an exaggerated show of glancing out the window. Silhouettes of trees swept past them. “Where we headed?”

  She paused, obviously caught off guard by the question. Wearing a tired, frustrated grin, she shook her head. “No idea.”

  Burnett sighed, grateful some tension had been released. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be gone for long. They did need a place to stay.

  In the glow of the dashboard, he spotted a cut on the back of her hand. Blood trickled across her knuckles.

  “What happened to your hand?”

  “Huh?” she mumbled, and squinted at her hand. “Nothing. Paper cut.”

  He shrugged, more than a little confused. “You know anyplace we can go?”

  “An uncle of mine maybe, but he’s an hour and a half from here.”

  “And where do we recharge this thing?”

  “I told you I blew it.”

  “We’ll find a place to stay,” he said. A phony positive attitude modified his voice. Far from convincing, he suspected she saw through his facade.

  He prodded his memory for someone they could stay with, someone the police wouldn’t think to watch. Although he resisted it, his mind coughed up just one answer—Dr. Stone. The last thing he wanted was to put Stone and his family at risk. He promised himself he would do everything possible to keep them out of trouble. How he would accomplish that he didn’t know, but the thought eased his conscience.

  CHAPTER 24

  Burnett and Emma approached the front door of Dr. Stone’s ivory colonial. With its immaculately landscaped yard and white picket fence, it resembled a house from a fifties TV show.

  Standing on the porch, he couldn’t bring himself to press the doorbell. Torn between his unwillingness to put anyone else in danger and their desperate need of help, he stood immobilized. He reflected upon his promise to do everything in his power to keep Stone and his family out of harm’s way. At that moment the promise rang hollow, little more than a cheap deal he’d brokered with himself to get to the front door. And now that they’d arrived, he questioned whether he should go through with it. If the police discovered that Stone had aided and abetted a fugitive, he could end up in jail, his career ruined.

  He brokered a second deal with himself. He‘d waste no time gathering evidence against Desmond. Within twenty-four hours he’d retrieve Henri’s computer and have Stone present it to the authorities.

  As he reached for the doorbell, the fear that he might be wrong overcame him. What if Desmond wasn’t the one who’d set him up? What if Desmond had, but he couldn’t recover the laptop?

  “What’s wrong?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t know if I can risk getting him involved.”

  “He’ll probably tell us to go to hell anyway.”

  Burnett needed to smile, but couldn’t.

  “As I said, it’s my fault you’re here,” Emma said. She raised her hand and extended a finger.

  Gently he lowered her arm. “I’ve got to do this.”

  A car whizzed by. He leaned forward, guided his index finger to the tiny, glowing yellow circle, and pressed. A series of chimes rang out, each peal a tiny dagger flung at his chest. Now committed to a path that could bring a great deal of suffering to more innocent people, he felt anxious, in unfamiliar territory.

  At least the pounding in his head had not gotten any worse during the ride here. For that he was grateful.

  The porch light flickered on, and Burnett swallowed hard. Dr. Stone opened the door, hesitated, then stepped out. For a moment all three stood in silence beneath the porch light.

  “You got the number of that l
awyer?” Burnett said. An uneasy smile curled his lips.

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “I have a wife. Kids. I can’t get mixed up in this.”

  “We’ll go.”

  “I know you’re not a murderer,” Stone said. “I’m sorry someone’s trying to set you up for it.”

  “I think I know who it is,” Burnett said. “I think it’s one of the teachers at SUNY.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s Desmond.”

  “You really believe he’s capable of something like this?”

  “Suppose Henri had written a brilliant paper and no one knew about it except him. I mean a paper far beyond anything Desmond could ever imagine.”

  “You’re talking about murder,” Stone said.

  “I’m talking about a man whose entire body of published work is ordinary at best.”

  “Hardly grounds for killing someone.”

  “Everyone knows he has high aspirations,” Burnett said.

  Stone snickered. “He thinks he’s such a damn genius. Every time he publishes a paper he expects to be hailed as the next Einstein.”

  “Yet people laugh at his work,” Burnett said. It surprised him to see Stone nod.

  “Then you’ll help us?” Emma asked.

  “It’s still a big jump,” Stone said. “I’ve known Connor Desmond for seven years. I find it impossible to believe he would murder one of his students and frame another one for it, all to publish a paper.”

  “What if it was that good?” Burnett asked. “Good enough for him to be hailed as a genius?”

  Stone sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know Mr. Laroche was smart. Dr. De Stefano mentioned he thought Henri should have taught half the classes he attended.”

  “I read it,” Burnett said.

  “And it’s that good?” Stone asked.

  Burnett nodded. “I heard something interesting on the news last night. Henri’s computer is missing.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” Stone said. “You really believe Desmond took it?”

  “I think he hired someone to take it for him.”

  Stone just stood there, the disbelief on his face unmistakable. “What’s the subject of the paper?”