Innocent Bystander

by Glenn Richards

  “You never know what a desperate man might do.”

  “Want me to take another walk?”

  Mayweather reached down and rubbed his right calf. “I need to work this cramp out of my leg.”

  “Let me take a walk,” Turner said with added emphasis. He reached for the door handle.

  Mayweather gave him an extended stare and shook his head.

  CHAPTER 48

  Propelled by the barrel of the Beretta, Burnett stepped onto one of three patios behind the ranch. Desmond slipped Greta’s pistol between his belt and slacks.

  “I don’t know why you think she’s here,” Burnett said. He stared into the darkness, confident Emma was miles away—terrified, confused, and sobbing, but safe.

  “She risked everything to help you earlier. She would not leave you now.” He stood beside Burnett. “Show yourself, Ms. Blankenship.”

  No one emerged from the woods.

  “I will kill him,” Desmond yelled. “Do not doubt that for a second.”

  Burnett grinned. Keep shouting.

  They waited. Burnett trusted Desmond would soon realize the futility of his efforts. His heart plummeted as Emma materialized from the darkness and slogged up the patio’s three concrete steps.

  “Why?” Burnett asked, unable to keep the question only a thought.

  “You need me,” she whispered in his ear. “You don’t know it, but you do.”

  Desmond shoved them into the kitchen and trailed a step behind. The Beretta wedged in Burnett’s back, he forced them into the living room.

  “The two of you have complicated my life more than you can imagine,” Desmond said. “And now you are going to help me restore everything.”

  He ushered them into the living room. A sickening odor hit Burnett, a smell of death. It shook him, and he instinctively leaned toward the hallway.

  To his left he spotted the magnificent Indian rug rolled up in the corner. A mop of bloodied hair protruded from the far end. Light-headed and fighting to maintain his balance, he clutched the doorway molding for support. “How many people do you plan to kill?”

  Desmond tilted the Beretta, pointing it at Emma. “I want the two of you to pick up that rug and follow me into the garage.”

  Neither moved.

  Desmond stormed over to Emma and smacked her across the cheek with the butt of the Beretta.

  She cried out and cupped her cheek.

  Desmond aimed the Beretta back toward Burnett before he could move. “Now, I want the two of you to pick up that rug and follow me into the garage.”

  Blood dribbled down her cheek. She dabbed at the cut.

  Burnett marched to the corner, averted his teacher’s gaze, and grabbed the less desirable end of the throw rug. The bloodied, tangled mop of hair fell across his wrists. Emma slid her fingers beneath the opposite end.

  Burnett heaved the rug up. The throb in his temple advanced across his forehead. A full-blown migraine couldn’t be far off.

  Emma hoisted her end, and Desmond directed them into the garage. A Honda Odyssey sat where Desmond’s Mercedes had been parked earlier. A bright blue tarp covered the opening to the garage.

  “You can imagine my displeasure at having to borrow my neighbor’s minivan,” Desmond said. He slipped the keychain from his pocket and tapped a button. The hatch rose. A four-foot by six-foot drop-cloth protected the carpeted floor.

  “Are we next?” Emma asked.

  “That depends on you. Put her in.”

  Burnett rested his end inside the vehicle. She mirrored his action.

  “Back into the house,” Desmond said.

  Burnett led them into the living room.

  “This way,” Desmond said, motioning with the Beretta.

  The trio filed into the office, where Henri’s computer waited on the desk. Keeping the Beretta level, Desmond lifted the computer, and slid it inside his safe. He opened a cabinet behind his desk and removed another laptop.

  “You will help me re-create Mr. Laroche’s equation,” he said. “Or Ms. Blankenship will join the young woman in the trunk.” He fired up the laptop.

  “I only read it once,” Burnett replied. “How can you expect me to re-create it? I didn’t even understand the damn thing.”

  “You have seen it in the dreams, just as I have. You saw it on the screen minutes ago. And you would be amazed how good a person’s memory becomes when properly motivated.”

  “Why’d you really erase it?” Burnett asked.

  “Don’t stall.”

  “You know what the dreams are telling you. What they’re telling us.”

  “How do we know,” Emma said, “you won’t kill us after he helps you?”

  “Sit at the desk,” Desmond said through clenched teeth, “and write out the equation the best you can.”

  Burnett took a single step closer to the desk.

  Desmond stared at him. “I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen carefully. You have no idea of the full potential of what your friend has done. His equation truly was a portal to the future.” He paused. “You asked how I knew you were at Stone’s house.”

  A ripple of nausea swept through Burnett’s stomach. The pain in his head intensified.

  “I dreamt it,” Desmond said. “The equation doesn’t just show the future. My consciousness was able to interact with it.”

  “You actually believe that?”

  “I don’t know what your friend did or how, but I asked where you were and I got the answer. Do you understand the implications?”

  “I understand you killed three people,” Emma said. “I understand you killed Henri so you could publish his paper as your own.”

  Desmond swiveled his head, his frustration clearly mounting. He faced Burnett. “Tell me you understand. This equation is far beyond what either of us realized.”

  “There has to be another explanation,” Burnett said. “A mathematical equation can’t do that.”

  “Just because it has never happened before does not mean it can’t now.”

  “That’s no answer. There has to be a rational explanation.”

  “Rational?” Desmond said. “How do you explain the fact I knew where you were?”

  “I can’t.” Nor could he explain the remarkable power the equation had had over him. Viewing it on the computer screen minutes ago, and reliving affecting moments from his past, had filled him with astonishment.

  He’d almost been unable to erase the thing. Had he not been trained in science, he would’ve been tempted to declare the equation supernatural.

  “Rational is accepting the facts,” Desmond said. “You were right. Neither of us has ever seen an equation like that before, because there has never been one.”

  Burnett visualized the equation again, and this time was able to see more. Many of its components were unlike anything he’d seen before. In fact, several of them appeared rather nonsensical, almost to the point where it seemed Henri hadn’t constructed a mathematical equation, but a diagram.

  In a burst of insight, Burnett’s mind proposed an idea so startling in its implications he couldn’t accept it, yet his brain refused to let it go.

  He heard Desmond make a threat, but his mind was too focused to respond.

  Could the equation be so advanced that the numbers, letters, and symbols themselves were in fact a form of technology, one we don’t recognize today? Maybe the specific order or combination was the secret.

  Impossible. That Henri had uncovered a secret before its time was likely; it had been done before. That he had created a new form of technology would take more convincing.

  Henri had set out to write a paper on time travel. He had created something far more.

  “He stumbled upon something extraordinary,” Desmond said. “I need it back.”

  “I told you I only read it once,” Burnett said.

  “Do what you can.”

  “Who was Audrey Lansing?” Emma asked.

  “No more stalling.”

  �
�How’d you get her in and out of the building without being seen?” she asked.

  “Bribed someone in maintenance,” he said fast. He positioned the Beretta twelve inches from Burnett’s forehead. “I have long considered myself a patient man, but you have now exhausted every ounce of patience I had. Sit down and rewrite the equation.”

  The final flicker of hope that his professor might return to his senses and do the right thing had been doused. Burnett sat at the desk. His palms hovered above the keyboard; the Beretta hovered less than six inches from his pounding forehead.

  He glanced at Emma, then followed it with a cursory peek at Desmond. Without hesitation he reached out and lowered the screen. He waited for Desmond to explode, but the professor just stood still.

  Then he thrust the Beretta against Burnett’s forehead. “If that’s how you feel.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” Burnett said. “You’re not the teacher I knew three days ago.”

  “And the student I knew, the one who sat in the back of my lecture hall and rarely participated, would never stare so defiantly down the barrel of a loaded gun.”

  “I can’t believe you’d kill me in cold blood.”

  “Then you do not yet realize what is at stake here.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Nothing has changed. You rewrite the paper.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Then your belief in me is misguided.” He squeezed the trigger an eighth of an inch.

  “No,” Emma shouted.

  Desmond did not acknowledge her.

  “There’s another copy of the paper,” she said.

  “Don’t,” Burnett said.

  Desmond twitched. “Where?”

  “Don’t tell him,” Burnett said.

  Emma lowered her head. “A memory stick. At my parents’ house.”

  The professor’s gaze flitted between his hostages. “Where do they live?”

  “Darien.”

  “Connecticut,” Desmond said. “Almost an hour from here.”

  His eyes locked on the Beretta, Burnett waited in silence for Desmond’s response.

  * * *

  Detective Mayweather spotted Desmond’s ranch ahead. Lights glowed in several rooms.

  Across the street he spied a red, vintage VW Beetle. A trace of exhaust escaped its tailpipe. The driver’s side door flew open and a man with a gray, hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans leapt out. A crude sling supported his right arm.

  Head down, the man marched toward Mayweather. He stopped five feet in front of him and raised his head.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Mayweather said.

  “Man’s got to make a living,” Mr. Frank said, lowering the hood of his zippered sweatshirt.

  “You could have told me you were working for Joe Blankenship.”

  “Since I’m no longer employed by the police department, I didn’t feel the need.”

  “It took me a little while to put two and two together,” Mayweather said. “That he was a senior VP at JRC Construction ten years ago. The fact that he runs his own construction company now should have tipped me off.” He paused a moment. “I didn’t know you two were so close.”

  “He’s given me some work over the years. Cash has been hard to come by since you cost me my job.”

  Mayweather could only snicker in disappointment.

  “That guy was guilty,” Mr. Frank said.

  “As sin?”

  “A lack of evidence does not make a man innocent.”

  “Planting evidence doesn’t make him guilty.”

  “You’re such a goddamn Boy Scout,” Mr. Frank said.

  “Because I follow rules?”

  “That punk offed himself. He knew he was guilty.”

  “No. That young man killed himself because he couldn’t live with the stigma of having been convicted and put away for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “You actually convinced yourself of that? He confessed. Before I could read him his Miranda rights.”

  “I was there. Remember? His English wasn’t good. He didn’t realize what he’d said.”

  “Then that hotshot lawyer shows up, tells him to keep his yap shut.”

  “I’d love to stand around all night and reminisce about the good old days,” Mayweather said, “but I got a job to do.”

  Mr. Frank turned his gaze skyward as if looking to the heavens for guidance. “Let me get the girl out first.”

  “Nobody blames her for what’s happened.”

  “Burnett’s guilty. She’s an accomplice.”

  Mayweather couldn’t stifle a sarcastic laugh.

  “I handed him to you on a platter,” Mr. Frank said. “You could have ended this.”

  “Where’d you get your ideas of guilt and innocence? A video game?”

  “It’s obvious he’s behind this.”

  “I need to go,” Mayweather said. He took a step toward Desmond’s ranch.

  “You telling me he’s not?”

  Mayweather noted the perplexed look that ripened on Mr. Frank’s face.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mr. Frank said. “Whatever goes down in that house, his daughter can’t be a part of it.”

  “He’s paid you that much?”

  Only the crickets spoiled the silence.

  “Sorry.” Mayweather took another step in the direction of Desmond’s home.

  Mr. Frank reached his left hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt. What appeared to be a gun barrel strove to poke through the front of the pocket. “Three minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  “That’s how you ask?”

  “This is how I beg. I know what you think of me, but we were partners once. That’s got to count for something.”

  “How do you even know she’s here?”

  Mr. Frank said nothing, but his line-of-sight drifted sheepishly to the street.

  Mayweather understood. His former partner still had contacts inside the department. “Turner. No wonder he was so excited to take another walk.”

  “I won’t leave without her.”

  “Then you should have gotten here sooner.”

  “You can turn your back for three minutes.”

  “You couldn’t get her out that fast.”

  “Give me that chance.”

  Mayweather wanted to; not because the man had a gun pointed at him, but because he’d been a good cop for fifteen years before the incident when Mayweather was a rookie forced him to resign in disgrace.

  But Emma had acted of her own free will, and even though she and Burnett were not guilty, there were still rules to follow. He’d already bent the rules too far by giving Burnett a shot at the computer.

  “Give me the gun,” Mayweather said in a soft but firm tone.

  “I got a family to support,” Mr. Frank said, making no attempt to hide the desperation in his voice.

  “We all do.”

  “Damn you, Jack,” Mr. Frank shouted. “Bend the rules. Once. He’s paying me fifty grand to bring her back.”

  Mayweather decided he wouldn’t waste one more second. He had no idea what was going on inside Desmond’s house. “I am going to bend the rules.”

  Mr. Frank’s eyes lit up, but Mayweather knew his next sentence would extinguish that light.

  “Get back in your car and drive home. I’ll pretend you were never here.”

  “Not enough.”

  “I’ve got no more time to waste,” Mayweather said, his control over his temper slipping. “I need to get in that house. She and Burnett aren’t responsible.”

  “He’ll still pay me for getting her out.”

  “Desmond is. And if they’re in there, no telling what he might do.”

  For the first time he saw uncertainty in his former partner’s face.

  “Let me handle this,” Mayweather said.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “If Desmond’s behind this, as you say, you need backup.”
r />   “And when did you become a southpaw?”

  “Give me your gun,” Mr. Frank said.

  “You out of your mind?”

  “Give it to me.”

  Mayweather unsnapped his holster. “This is going to end badly. You know that.” The detective gripped the handle and eased his revolver from its holster.

  “Handle first,” Mr. Frank said.

  * * *

  Burnett wasn’t surprised when the professor aimed the Beretta once again between his eyes.

  “Don’t,” Emma said.

  “There is no way Henri would have double-crossed me,” Desmond said.

  “Maybe he knew he couldn’t trust you,” she said.

  “My apologies,” Desmond said. He swung the gun and pointed it at Emma. “I am new at this. Why don’t we go back to the prior motivation?” He lifted the computer screen.

  The laptop required several seconds to awaken from its slumber. In that time Burnett observed Desmond’s gaze shift to a crack between the curtains.

  “Impossible,” Desmond said. “Impossible.”

  Through the slit Burnett spotted two men on the walkway. The first, Mayweather, neared the front door. The man ten feet behind appeared to be Mr. Frank.

  Desmond crossed to the door, then spun to face them. From his pocket he dug a remote. “This controls the alarm. You make a sound or trip the alarm, I will kill them. Then I will shoot both of you and you can watch each other bleed to death.” He shut the door.

  A metallic click sounded from the doorknob. Emma sprang to the door with Burnett in her wake. She twisted the knob, but it wouldn’t turn.

  “He locked it from the outside,” she said.

  Burnett attempted to twist the knob, without success.

  She eased her ear to the door. “You need to hear this.”

  He placed his ear against the door, and caught the tail-end of an exasperated denial from Desmond.

  “I’m certain Mr. Burnett will show,” Mayweather said from the doorway.

  “It’s Mayweather,” she said, shaking the door.

  “Unless you have a warrant, you have no right to enter my home,” Desmond said from the foyer. “Where’s the other man?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Where is he?” Desmond demanded.

  Footfalls thumped in the foyer. A pair of angry voices overlapped, each striving to out-decibel the other. Two gunshots reverberated through the room. A single thud shook the floor outside.