Good Chemistry

by George Stephenson

  Table of Contents

  GOOD CHEMISTRY

  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

  GOOD CHEMISTRY

  GEORGE STEPHENSON

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  GOOD CHEMISTRY

  Copyright©2015

  GEORGE STEPHENSON

  Cover Design by Leah Suttle

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-61935-693-1

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is dedicated to Jane Terzis

  an excellent artist and teacher

  Chapter 1

  As she jogged along Debra could feel someone coming up from behind her. She pulled one of her ear buds out.

  “Mornin’, Mike,” robbery Detective Amos Meacham shouted over his shoulder at Debra as he and his partner, Leonard Kane, jogged by.

  Debra was shocked to see the pair of childish buffoons out on the track at all.

  Both were puffy-faced, hung-over, divorced, and at least thirty pounds overweight. ‘Mornin’ Mike’ was their childish code for Debra. Mike rhymed with dyke. She wasn’t of course. She’d heard it all before and wasn’t surprised to still be hearing it even after becoming Lead Investigator with the Major Case Division of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

  Her name didn’t rhyme with ‘itch’ either.

  Debra put her ear buds back in while she knocked out her final set of one hundred sit-ups to complete her three-hour daily workout. The behemoth Florida sun was already fully above the horizon, clubbing anything that moved like a baby fur seal. Kane and Meacham were already down to a fast, alcohol-blurred walk after two laps. Debra just shook her head as they limped by, swinging their arms like a couple of gorillas and chattering away like schoolgirls.

  Debra was finished with her workout while Kane and Meacham were just getting started. That was the story of her life: first to finish.

  She graduated first in her class at the academy. She was the first woman to make Lead Detective of Major Case and the youngest to make the squad; man or woman. It went on and on. All the way back to first grade.

  Debra was six when her mother Catherine took off, abandoning her to her father’s tender mercies forever. Her father never remarried. He was a drill sergeant in the United States Army. He already had his true love.

  He might have remarried if it weren’t for Branson, Debra’s brother. Although she had never known him, he haunted her life like a ghost. Branson had been stillborn. That had totally destroyed Sergeant Manning. A boy was all he ever wanted in the world.

  Debra was likely the only girl in the tri-state area who understood that crying meant you were a ‘weak maggot.’ So the kids in school, the guys at the academy, and her coworkers on the force didn’t really bother her much at all.

  She saw Kane and Meacham as a couple of kids. And really, they were. I mean if that’s all they had. Are you kidding me? She thought to herself. Until one of them could put an army boot in the center of her back and actually prevent her from doing a push-up, they weren’t shit.

  No, peckerwoods like these didn’t even faze her. But some things did. Mostly the ever-present feeling of being alone. Not lonely necessarily, but just alone. She felt like she didn’t fit in anywhere.

  Women thought she was a freak because she was as strong as a man, both physically and mentally. She wore her gleaming black hair short and spiky. It was sexy and women hated her for it. For that, and for being the best physical specimen in the room wherever she went.

  That didn’t always go over great with the fellas either. Especially if they found out that it wasn’t just superb physical fitness but deeply honed fighting skills as well.

  At five-eight and a hundred twenty-seven pounds Debra wasn’t large for a woman. A point her father never failed to remind her of at every opportunity.

  The few men brave enough to approach her found that she was indeed all woman in the ways that counted and more than a match for them in the ways that didn’t. She never stayed involved for very long. She’d just never met a man who was her equal.

  Debra’s phone rang. “Detective Manning . . . yes . . . okay . . . got it. I’m on top of it.” Debra snapped her phone shut and jumped through a quick shower. Captain Frazier had assigned her a new case.

  A building explosion, and apparently there were people inside. He said something odd was going on that had everyone at the scene rattled. Deb toweled off and got dressed. Her blue blazer and slacks completed the image of a no-nonsense cop. She checked the clip to her nine millimeter and tucked it into its well-worn shoulder holster. She shoved the towel in a hamper and rushed out to her car.

  Debra jumped in her 1969 fully restored, cherry-red Ford Mustang. She gunned it over to the crime scene. As soon as she turned the corner onto Citrus, she understood what had everyone so rattled. The building was blown up, all right. No surprises there. But my God, the blast-radius.

  The building on either side and the house across a four-lane street were all completely scorched on the side facing the blast. Now, in place of where a chemistry lab once stood, there was a crater thirty feet deep.

  “Detective Manning.” Williams nodded.

  “Morning, Williams. First on the scene?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Run it for me.”

  “Well at five-thirty-seven this morning the nine-one-one switchboard went crazy. Nine hundred and six calls in a ten-minute span. Everyone who only felt it reported an earthquake. And for the few who actually saw it say it was a green fireball a thousand feet high.” Williams paused. Debra grunted her disbelief.

  “Crazy, I know. But here’s the thing: they all reported the same thing.”

  “Green, huh?”

  “Yes, ma
’am.”

  “Thanks, Williams.” Manning gave him a friendly slap on the arm. He was one of the good ones.

  “Morning, Manning.”

  “Morning, Ray.”

  Ray Marshal was a rail-thin wirehair who wore his pants a few inches too short and smoked three packs of Camels a day. He was the head of the arson investigation unit. Go figure.

  “So what does it look like, Ray?”

  “Well, there was certainly an explosion. No question about that, but it wasn’t a bomb. There aren’t any bomb fragments. Just this chalky bluish residue all over everything.”

  “A chemical explosion? An accident maybe?” Debra was praying to God.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get that lucky, Detective. This thing burned hotter than any fire I’ve ever seen. We’re finding chunks of stainless steel as far as three blocks away. And none of them are bigger than a quarter. I’m rushing samples to the lab.”

  “Bodies?”

  “Well, yes and no. There were at least two people inside but there isn’t enough left to really properly call them bodies. And, Debra, walk with me . . . ”

  They hopscotched across the shattered asphalt to the residential house across the street.

  “Check that out.” Ray pointed at what appeared to be the chalky outline of a person stooped over tending her flower patch. Inside of the faint outline there was a fainter pattern, which looked like the outline of a skeleton. “My God. Is that bone?” Debra whispered.

  “Yep. That would take over six hours in a crematory oven. This happened so fast she didn’t have time to stand up straight.”

  The detective and Ray walked back and crouched down over the edge of the crater. “Hey, Doc.”

  “Morning, Detective. We’re finding bits of teeth and jaw fragments. I’ll hand deliver them to the forensic odontology lab but it doesn’t look promising.”

  “Can you confirm two bodies?” Debra shook her head in dismay. Doctor Platt, the Medical Examiner, copied the gesture. “No. Not to a certainty. My best guess is yes, but I couldn’t swear to that in a court of law.” The M.E. dropped the shards into a clear plastic evidence collection bag.

  “So DNA is out of the question.”

  “I’m afraid so. The only way we’re going to sort all of this out is to determine everyone with access to the lab and then see which two are missing.”

  “Already on it.” Manning hit ‘one’ on her speed dial. “Captain Frazier, it’s Manning. I see why everyone is so rattled. This is something out of the apocalypse. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three, but they can’t be sure . . . Templeton Management on East Fourth, I can find it. Yes . . . yes. Can do. Okay.” Manning rang off and headed over to the property management company to have a look at the lease for the property.

  Debra pulled up and parked. “Detective Manning. Major Case.” Deb flipped her badge as she entered.

  “Oh yes, ma’am. We’ve been expecting you. This is horrible. People are saying it’s terrorism. Is it true?” Manning pursed her lips with irritation as the receptionist studied her reaction for clues.

  “Ma’am, it’s way too soon to tell. It looks like it may have been a chemical fire.” Debra always hated this part. No matter what she said, she was screwed. Say it is terrorism—everyone freaks. Tell the truth—that you have no clue—and everyone freaks and calls the cops incompetent. Say it’s a chemical fire—the least alarming scenario—and when the truth is finally found, you’re guilty of spreading misinformation and probably considered part of a police cover-up.

  “Ma’am, can I just get a look at the lease? Time is of the essence.”

  “Oh, of course, forgive me. Here.”

  “Andrew McGee, a chemical researcher.” Manning read it aloud to help reinforce the chemical fire angle to the gossip. Silently, she wrote down his address and the one for Bernadette O’Malley, the second occupant named on the lease.

  Debra flipped her notebook closed and headed back to headquarters to brief the Brass. “God damn it,” Debra fumed out loud. Before this, she had herself waist-deep in the Doc Robber case and she had really hoped to break it wide open.

  It would be her ticket out of the Miami-Dade Police Department and possibly into the FBI. She wasn’t happy about it, but she knew the time for some big changes was coming. Her father was in the ICU at Mercy hospital with end-stage bone cancer. She would wait until he passed before she decided. With him gone she wouldn’t have any real ties to Miami. She was champing at the bit to find something more challenging.

  “Damn it all to hell. They’re gonna take me off the Doc Robber case and kick it back down to Robbery. The assholes Kane and Meacham would just love that. I can hear the crap now. Couldn’t handle it and now we have to come in behind you and clean up your mess.” Debra vented as she put the top up on her convertible. A brief squall was blowing in off the Atlantic.

  She was right about them pulling her off the case. Still, the assholes Kane and Meacham wouldn’t get any further than she had, which was nowhere. But, damn it, that was the challenge of it to her. Twelve second-story jobs in twenty-two months and not a shred of evidence to go on.

  The guy showed up, waltzed right past security alarms, dogs, fences, night watchmen, and then went in, cracked the safe, took all the cash and jewels, and vanished without a trace. Whoever this guy was, he was good.

  Hell, he was great; and Debra was bringing her A-game. Now she would have to work the bombing while she was on duty and save the search for the guy who robbed doctors and insurance bigwigs on her own time.

  That was the only clue, why was it only doctors and insurance guys? The robber had bypassed sweeter plumbs on every block he’d hit so far. That was the key, Debra knew, but what in the heck did it mean?

  Chapter 2

  Two months earlier

  At Weston-Mills Research, 1321 East Citrus, Doctor Bernadette O’Malley peered through her microscope at a paper-thin slice of brain tissue harvested from a donation body to further her research into brain abnormalities; specifically, as they related to problems of perception, and disorders like schizophrenia and autism.

  Bernadette or Bernie, as her friends called her, was focused on unlocking a chemical solution for the problem of crippling shyness. She was trying to cure herself. As a child, she seemed perfectly normal but with the onset of adolescence she became impossibly shy. Particularly around people she didn’t know and more so around boys her age.

  It was painful and diminishing to her. Nevertheless, to many would be suitors, her shyness was positively captivating. She already looked the part of some kind of woodland nymph. Her fiery red-orange hair and wide, innocent emerald-green eyes made her ivory-white skin even more pronounced. Her tiny, five-foot frame completed the image.

  For most men who set eyes on her it was love at first sight. Yet, when they realized her shyness wasn’t a coy flirtation, but a state she could not be pulled from, they were left to admire her from afar.

  If she had worn a medieval gown and lived in a castle tower the picture would have made more sense; however for Bernie, this was no fairytale and she was no princess. To her, it was as though she was living trapped inside a bottle. She could see the world bustling all around her but she remained locked away inside.

  She felt as if she could scream at the top of her voice and no one would hear her. Other than Andrew McGee, her research partner and best friend, and Judy Marx, her former college buddy and current housemate, no one had ever successfully drawn Bernie out of her shell.

  She met Andrew in a freshmen chemistry class at Florida State. He picked her as his lab partner. His gentle spirit soon put Bernie at ease. She felt drawn to him the moment he pulled up a stool next to her. Bernie turned her shy blushing gaze to him and looked into his soft hazel-colored eyes. He reminded her of the character John-boy on the television show The Waltons.
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  His feather-light ginger-colored hair always seemed on the verge of floating away on the next breeze. As he spoke, the slightest movement would send it fluttering.

  Bernie said hello and introduced herself. Andrew reciprocated and their friendship was forged. It wasn’t until days later that Andrew learned how privileged he truly was.

  ‘You got Bernie O’Malley to speak to you,’ they all said in turn. All of the college horn-dogs were terribly jealous and now looked at Andrew differently. They all assumed he must really have game if he cracked the Bernie O’Malley case. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Andrew was terribly shy and awkward himself. Not to the same crippling degree as Bernie was, but enough that he gazed into her eyes and knew he had found a kindred spirit.

  Andrew had a brilliant scientific mind but he had a deficit when it came to reading emotional cues. He wasn’t insensitive, but the wiring in his brain didn’t allow him to read people. When he finally understood someone was in pain, he was sympathetic. He’d had his taste of suffering.

  When Andrew was thirteen his older brother, James Jared, or JJ as his friends called him, was stricken with schizophrenia. He couldn’t cope with losing his sanity and took an overdose of sleeping pills two years later. So from the age of fifteen, Andrew has had the single-minded obsession to unravel the biological basis for the disease.

  Bernie admired Andrew. After her first semester, she changed her major from wildlife biology to chemistry so she could share more of her classes with him. She’d been by his side ever since.

  Although they seemed like a perfect match as a couple things never advanced beyond the friendship stage. Bernie loved Andrew. She loved him with all her heart, but her shyness prevented her from giving him anything more than subtle clues with her eyes. The words were simply impossible to utter.