Innocent Bystander

by Glenn Richards

  “You had to get past his crankiness and moodiness,” she said.

  “How did you?”

  It was a question she’d never considered. “I’m not sure. I guess I could sense he was a decent person underneath. Either that or I believed he’d be an interesting challenge.”

  They shared a brief laugh.

  Emma considered her choice of words—a decent person and an interesting challenge. Not a ringing endorsement of Henri’s character. Her ambivalence toward him stirred up the contents in her already queasy stomach.

  She needed to lob the conversation back to Burnett’s side of the net. “What about you two? You were very different.” Speaking about Henri in the past tense thumped a nerve.

  “Our love of physics. I hate to keep using this word, but he was the most brilliant student I’d ever met. More than that, he was the most brilliant person I’d ever met. He knew more than all the professors at the school. Dr. De Stefano was right; Henri should have been teaching them. Anyway, I just started picking his brain one day, and we spent the rest of the night talking about physics and its potential to change the world.”

  He paused. She observed him in the feeble illumination of an old Scooby Doo nightlight they’d found behind a desk. Although he turned away, she noticed him bite down on the corner of his lower lip. She recognized it as a nervous habit he’d had ever since she’d met him.

  “Since I’m so tired of the word brilliant,” he said, now facing her, “I think I’ll refer to him as a visionary. I like the sound of that. Anyway, he always thought about what was possible, not about what couldn’t be done. I admired that. Too many people love to tell you what can’t be done and why. Not visionaries.”

  Emma sensed a tear well up and try to escape. At that moment she needed to be held. Burnett must have read her mind or seen something in her expression, because he leaned in and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I miss him so much,” she said. It wasn’t what she’d intended to say, but she'd spoken the truth.

  “So do I.”

  She placed her arms around him and they held each other for nearly a minute in silence. Never had an embrace felt so good. Never had the simple act of holding someone provided such security and comfort. Her chattering mind in neutral, she soaked up every ounce of healing the moment offered.

  Soon her analytical mind resumed, and she reviewed the brief conversation they’d just had. Something she’d said near the beginning struck her. “You’re not thinking of going up to Desmond and asking him if he has the computer?”

  Burnett broke the embrace and met her eyes. “Course not.”

  From his expression it was apparent he’d formulated a plan.

  “What are you gonna do?” she asked.

  “I thought I’d drop by his house, while he’s not home of course. Maybe he stumbled across it and took it home for safekeeping.”

  “You really believe Professor Desmond hired that girl, then killed her and framed you?” She could hardly believe the words as she spoke them. “All to get Henri’s computer?”

  “His paper was that brilliant. There’s that word again.”

  “The man’s a respected college professor. Everybody I know talks so highly of him. Except Henri, of course.”

  “It’s tough when the student knows he’s smarter than the teacher.” Burnett paused. “I’m convinced she took it and gave it to him.”

  “So he could publish the paper as his?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Henri wouldn’t show it to me. Refused to even consider it. That wasn’t him. He always showed me his work. I had to sneak into his apartment just to read it.”

  “You think maybe Desmond ordered him not to let anyone see it?”

  “Problem is, I can’t prove it. I can’t prove anything. I’m not even a hundred percent sure I’m right. I just don’t know what else to believe.”

  She still found it difficult to imagine that a well-respected professor at SUNY could do such a thing, but since Burnett had risked everything in an attempt to prove his theory, she wanted to stand behind him. “Have you told the police?”

  “All I have is a theory. I got zero evidence to back it up.”

  “You should still tell them what you suspect.”

  “All the evidence points to me. If Desmond is behind this, he’s done a great job of making me the fall guy.”

  “Tell Mayweather. I have a good feeling about him.”

  Burnett grinned. It seemed he had a similar opinion of the detective. He slipped his wallet from his back pocket and removed a card. Several numbers had been scribbled on the back.

  “He gave me his home and cell numbers,” Burnett said.

  “Leave him a message. He might look into Professor Desmond’s background. Maybe he’s not as squeaky clean as he appears.”

  * * *

  The flick of a switch plunged the room into darkness. His contact lenses now safely stored in the medicine cabinet, Detective Mayweather squinted to distinguish each glowing red digit on his desk clock. 3:05 a.m. “Nothing like three hours sleep to refresh yourself for the next day,” he mused.

  His cell phone, recharging on top of the printer, vibrated. He leaned close to check the caller ID: an alternating sequence of #s and *s crossed the screen.

  “What the hell?”

  Only two dozen people knew his personal phone number. Then he remembered he’d given it to Burnett. Every attempt to locate him by tracing his cell phone had failed, so he’d assumed Burnett had had the presence of mind to remove the battery. Now he suspected the fugitive had tinkered with his phone and rendered it untraceable.

  His first impulse, courtesy of his training, was to urge him to turn himself in. At the same time, he was curious what the man had to say. He snatched the phone and tapped the answer key. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Burnett?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “That nonsense on the caller ID. Nobody else hides their name and number. How’d you do it?”

  “Henri. Don’t know what he did, but he was convinced the government was spying on him. Didn’t want them listening in on his calls to me.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Would it do any good to tell you who I think’s behind this?” Burnett said. His voice crackled across the less-than-perfect connection.

  “I know you were reading up on your physics professor with Clara’s computer.”

  “I have no evidence, but I’m convinced he hired Audrey to drive Henri to suicide. Then he killed her. Or had someone do it for him.”

  “You got to give me something to work with here. The man has no criminal record.”

  Ten seconds of silence followed, then Burnett spoke: “She took Henri’s computer. She must have. I think she gave it to him.”

  “‘I think’ and ‘I’m convinced’ are not enough for me to open an investigation. What do you know?”

  Once again silence dominated both ends of the phone. The conversation had done little but nurture doubt about Burnett’s innocence. Although his gut still insisted they believed their story, he couldn’t deny the possibility Burnett and Emma were attempting to frame Desmond.

  “Have you found anything out about that girl, Audrey?” Burnett asked.

  The change of subject irked him. “She’s still a Jane Doe. Probably a runaway. Changed her name, of course.”

  “Why would Desmond be involved with a runaway?” Burnett asked, echoing Mayweather’s thought.

  “You tell me.”

  A third round of silence followed. Never should have answered the phone.

  He wanted to urge Burnett to get as far away as possible, because if he remained in the area he would be caught, but he couldn’t do that. “You need to turn yourself in.” His heart wasn’t in the words, and he hoped Burnett sensed that. “Don’t do anything stupid like going after the computer. We’ll track it down.”

  This time the silence had a different tenor. He straightened his arm. The call had ended.

  Burnett�
��ll go after the computer. He considered dropping Timothy off with his grandmother, then waiting outside Desmond’s house for Burnett to arrive, but he’d be unable to function the rest of the day with no sleep. He considered assigning a uniform to watch Desmond’s house, but that would simply guarantee Burnett’s capture. The idea of him going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit made him ill. Memories of an incident that occurred when he was a rookie slipped in through the back door of his mind. He tried to shut it, but the door wouldn’t close.

  He and his partner had caught a young Guatemalan construction worker suspected of murdering his wife for insurance money. The man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Months later evidence came to light that exonerated him. The man had, in fact, been framed, and Mayweather, primarily due to his inexperience, had been an unwitting accomplice.

  Released within weeks, the shame the construction worker felt, and the pain and stigma of having been convicted remained with him. He could not find a job, and his family and friends disowned him. Six months later he hung himself. His eight-year-old son became an orphan.

  Common sense told Mayweather he’d simply done his job. Compassion insisted he’d made a rookie mistake blindly accepting his former partner’s every word, and he deserved forgiveness. Reason maintained he’d had no control over the actions of others; the head of the department’s internal investigation had arrived at the same conclusion.

  Guilt, however, reminded him almost daily of the role he played in that boy becoming an orphan.

  While that situation differed from Burnett’s, he still couldn’t bear the responsibility of helping send another innocent man to prison.

  He crossed to his desk and clicked on a lamp. With his thumb and middle finger, he rotated the wedding ring he still wore, and stared at the beautifully framed photograph of his wife on the back right corner of his desk. She sat on a bluff overlooking the steel-blue waters of Hana Bay. The glow of happiness on her face tried in vain to brighten the room.

  “I don’t know what to do, Julie,” he said to the lovely face inside the rectangular wood frame. “Can you help me?”

  He waited, as he always did after requesting her guidance, and as always, she ignored his request. He twisted his ring a second time, hoping that might motivate her.

  A moment later he lowered his eyes and fell back into the chair. Times like this aroused the most frustration: not the lack of a reply, but the waste. The wasted lives, and the wasted potential—his wife, the construction worker, and now possibly Mr. Burnett.

  There was a lot wrong with the world—drunk drivers who run red lights, honest people framed by those who are supposed to serve and protect them. He couldn’t fix all the problems, he knew that, but he wanted to do just a little, enough to know that when he died the world had been a slightly better place because he’d been in it. Many would call him naïve; others, idealistic. He didn’t care.

  The present crisis intruded to warn him that if Desmond had done what Burnett claimed, the professor wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he found him in his home. If Burnett died, the truth might never be known.

  No matter what choice he made, the outcome would not be pleasant.

  He needed some sleep. He was all too familiar with how effectively fatigue hindered clear thinking. The only thing he knew for certain was that Burnett was on his own.

  CHAPTER 27

  A bleary-eyed Desmond watched his printer spit out the final sheet of the five-page time travel paper. He found it difficult to believe something so small, less than twenty-five hundred words and a dozen equations, could change the world.

  He heaved a sigh of relief, neatly stacked the pages and attached a paper clip. It had taken him two days to figure out Henri’s password, two days of trying every word and number combination he could think of. Two days before, out of desperation, he had typed in a word so improbable he never could have imagined someone with Henri’s genius would have chosen for a password: Henri.

  To his chagrin, the “updated” version proved virtually identical to the draft he had previewed in his office. Having anticipated this possibility, he’d added his personal touches to the first draft. Henri’s ideas had now been communicated in his unique style. Though disheartened, at least he could now dispose of his student’s computer.

  Seated at his desk, he propped up the lucid dreaming book in his lap. He flipped open to the page where he’d left off.

  Before he even finished the first paragraph, a flicker outside interrupted his reading. Something had reflected in the light of the streetlamp. Earlier in the night he’d thought he had seen someone in his front yard, but when he’d arrived at the window, he’d found no one.

  This time he felt certain he had seen someone. He stretched and pretended to stifle a yawn. After he shut the book, he leaned forward and switched off the desk lamp. He leapt up and sprang to the window. A teenage girl stood partially hidden behind an American elm alongside the driveway. He lowered his reading glasses to get a better look at her.

  A chill overcame him when he realized she resembled Audrey—same brown hair, same style of clothing, and about the same age. He rubbed his eyes and refocused. My God, it is her.

  He stumbled through the dark office, down the hallway, and to the front door. Standing at the door, he contemplated what he would do if it was her. That was impossible, he reminded himself, and he switched off the alarm. He yanked open the door and stepped onto the porch. She was gone.

  He stood there, uncertain what to do. Apprehension urged him back indoors, but curiosity spurred him in the opposite direction. He descended the three steps, paused, then crept halfway down the brick walk. From this location he surveyed the expansive front yard, but still saw no one.

  The night, perfectly still, sought to draw him further out. Apprehension won this battle and drove him into the house.

  Someone had no doubt played a trick on him. But who, and why, he could not imagine. Had Burnett hired a look-alike to spook him? Possible, but the man probably had his hands full avoiding the police.

  Maybe he had hallucinated her. He knew his lack of sleep had begun to affect him, and he needed to be sharp. In the coming days and weeks he would make some of the most important decisions of his life. Although the recurring nightmare would not permit a good night’s sleep, he could rest for several hours. After a cursory peek out the door, he shut it, double-checked the lock, and headed to the bedroom.

  * * *

  Burnett angled his head back and reeled in horror as the gray-white mushroom cloud towered above the ancient city of Rome. A torrent of death ripped through the Italian capital.

  Voices called to him: “Why have you done this to us?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” he protested, but the disembodied souls repeated their demand.

  Burnett covered his ears. His accusers persisted, furious and energetic.

  Just as he passed the point where he could no longer tolerate it, he catapulted up on the hard, lumpy mattress. Emma, who’d been lying beside him, gasped and tumbled to the concrete floor.

  “What happened?” she asked. She knelt on the edge of the mattress.

  “Nothing,” he said, unaware at first of where he was. With the glow of the nightlight surrounding her face, barely illuminating it from behind, he mistook her for an angel. Unsure whether she was real or a product of his imagination, he reached out for her.

  The memory of the nightmare smacked him across the face. He lowered his hand and glanced at the time on his smartphone. Only fifteen minutes had passed. Was that even enough time to enter a dream state? Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was something different.

  He wanted to tell her about the nightmare. He wanted to tell her how much it distressed him and how he wished he could understand why it repeated every night. But she would surely consider him crazy. Having the same dream as Henri, the same one that brought Audrey into his life that fateful night, was crazy. They had ample insanity in their lives at the moment. No need to burd
en her with anything more.

  “Talk to me,” she said.

  “Just a bad dream,” he said, hoping that would be enough. Once again he glanced at the phone. It remained connected to the webpage he’d been viewing when he nodded off. He disconnected it from the web. He’d vowed to limit himself to five minutes at a time in cyberspace. Though confident Henri’s tinkering had left him as invisible on the Internet as he’d been on Mayweather’s phone, he had no desire to push his luck. Nor did he want Emma to know what websites he’d been visiting.

  Since his inquiry into nightmares and dream interpretation had proven futile, Burnett had sought information about the curious electric shock he’d felt when he’d finished Henri’s paper. Plenty of information existed on electric shock therapy and electrical safety. Everything he ever wanted to know about how to treat someone who’d suffered an electric shock was available. Nowhere on the World Wide Web had he found a single reference that would shed light on his experience.

  Whatever Henri had stumbled upon was without precedent.

  “Not as bad as the dreams Henri was having, I hope,” Emma said.

  “No,” was all he could think to say. He hoped she wouldn’t press him on the subject.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t remember any details.” He searched for a way to steer the conversation from his dream. His gaze toured the dark garage, and his attention settled on the outline of her car. The Nissan Leaf was one of the more unusual-looking vehicles he’d seen recently. One of the first mass-produced all-electric cars, he knew well why she drove it.

  He also knew once he got her started on the subject of why, she would forget about his dream.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” Emma said.

  He couldn’t ignore the hurt that permeated her voice, but it didn’t change the fact that he was not prepared to tell her; much the same as Henri had not told either of them about his dream—until they’d noticed changes in his behavior and relentlessly pestered him about it.