by Terri Reid
“So, what’s the big deal? It was a stupid prank and it went wrong, that’s all. We were teen-agers, it won’t be held against us anymore. There’s a two year statute of limitations on wrongful death, I looked it up.”
Ephraim laughed bitterly. “Listen Wally, there isn’t a statute of limitations on murder.”
Wally fell back in his chair. “What? This wasn’t murder,” he said. “The chemicals I put in the beakers just caused the fire. It got out of control, yeah, but we didn’t do anything to hurt anyone.”
Ephraim laughed again. “That’s why I like you Wally,” he said. “You’ve always been so gullible, so easy to manipulate. Yeah, the chemicals didn’t cause the explosion, but the bomb I set under his desk sure did.”
There was a moment of shocked silence.
“You didn’t say anything about a bomb,” Wally said, his voice hoarse with shock. “You never said anything about a bomb.”
Ephraim shrugged and sat back against his chair. “That’s what you say now,” he said. “But as I recall, it was your idea. You came to me wanting to get back at the teacher who was going to steal your dad’s tenure. Of course, since all the evidence is gone, it would be my word against yours. And, since Rosie got shot at after you gave her the keys, I wonder who they are going to believe.”
“You can’t do this. They won’t believe you,” Walter stammered. “Why would I...?”
“Changed your life when your dad became head of the Chemistry department, didn’t it, Wally?” he sneered. “More money, more prestige and instead of going to a community college you actually got to go downstate. Yes, I’d say that was worth killing for.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Wally screamed.
Ephraim laughed softly. “Yeah, tell that to the judge.”
Wally dropped his head into his hands and cried. “Oh, God, I didn’t do it. I can’t go to jail.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t last a long time in jail, Wally,” he agreed. “You’re just too weak. You know what they do to guys like you in jail.”
Wally felt sick to his stomach.
“But, Wally, you don’t have to go to jail,” Ephraim said calmly.
Wally looked up at him, his face red and blotchy, snot running from his nose and his face wet with a mixture of tears and sweat. “I don’t?” he asked, running a sleeve across his face.
Ephraim leaned forward toward Wally. “No, Wally, all you got to do is make sure Rosie Meriwether stays quiet. Forever.”
Chapter Forty
The next morning Mary entered the private nursing home that sat along the border of one of Freeport’s finest parks. Even though the facilities were built more than seventy years ago, they remained in pristine condition, the grand lady of nursing homes in the area.
She walked across the Oriental rug placed over the polished wood floor and smiled at the receptionist seated behind the desk. The name plate on the top of the desk read “Jennika Nikole.” “Good morning, Jennika,” she said. “I’m here to see Ross Gormley. Is he still in his room?”
Mary had learned when she was a rookie cop to never give someone a chance to turn you down, so she never asked permission to see someone, but assumed she could and skipped to the next question.
Jennika looked down at a schedule and smiled up at Mary. “No, Ross is in the All-Purpose Room right now,” she said. “It’s down to the end of the hall and then turn left.”
“Thank you,” Mary responded and followed the directions.
The All-Purpose Room was comfortably furnished with a grand piano in one corner, bookshelf and occasional chairs in another and a number of small card tables scattered throughout the room. A grouping of picture windows looked out to a statuary garden that was beautiful even in February. In front of the windows was a man seated in a wheelchair.
As she approached, she saw that he was dressed in a button down shirt and khaki pants, his face was clean shaven and his hair tidy. In one hand he held paperback book, his other hand was clasping his pant leg tightly.
Mary approached him. “Hello, are you Mr. Gormley?”
The man seemed startled for a moment, but once he looked up and saw Mary’s face he smiled. “You’re Patrice Stewart, aren’t you?” he said with a broad smile. “I never forget one of my students.”
He put the book down and held out his left hand; Mary took it in both of her hands and shook it gently. “Can’t do a damned thing with my other hand,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
No, I don’t mind at all. Actually, my name is Mary O’Reilly,” she confessed, pulling up a folding chair and sitting across from him. “May I visit with you for a little bit?”
“Of course, Patrice, of course,” he said. “How is your family?”
She grinned. “They are wonderful,” she said. “And how is yours?”
He shrugged. “Well, you know Wally, always too busy to visit,” he said. “Do you know what I really think?”
Mary shook her head. “No, what?”
“I don’t think I was the father he wanted me to be,” he said.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “He’s probably just busy with his job.”
Ross shrugged. “The boy has been busy since high school. He changed in high school, don’t know what it was. We used to be so close.”
“Speaking of high school, I was wondering if we could talk about Charles Thorne,” she said. “Do you remember him?”
He smiled and nodded his head slowly. “Now, Charlie, there was a great man,” he said. “The good ones always die too young.”
“Do you remember when he died?” she asked.
“I do remember,” he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his eyes, “Changed my life forever.”
“In what way?” Mary asked.
“Charlie and me, we worked together in the Chemistry Department,” he said. “But you’re too young to remember those days. Me and Charlie were both married, both had families. But, Charlie, he was the up and coming star. He was a coach, he was a great teacher and he had a way of connecting with those kids...”
He looked up at her. “He got them to love Chemistry,” he said, shaking his head. “I always thought Chemistry was something to drill into their thick skulls.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But when I heard laughter coming from the next room I was amazed.”
He stared at her for a moment and seemed to lose his train of thought. “Did you have Charlie as a teacher?” he asked.
“No,” she replied kindly. “No, I never had the pleasure.”
“He had a way of teaching about displacement,” he laughed out loud. “Raquel Welch displacement theory, he called it. I thought it was silly, taking a serious area of study and making fun of it. But damn if his kids didn’t get better grades on all their finals than mine.”
“How did that make you feel?” Mary asked.
“Nervous as hell,” he said. “Here’s this upstart who’s doing better than me. The kids are dropping my class to get into his. I wanted to put a stop to it.”
Mary sat forward in her chair. “So, what did you do?” she asked.
“I went over to his classroom one morning, before school started,” he said. “I grabbed the doorknob, but my hand wouldn’t close. It wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. It was just shaking.”
He put his left hand on top of the right one.
“Charlie took me by the arm and pulled me into his room,” he continued. “I looked up at him, I was scared, really scared. He asked me how long it’d been happening. I told him off and on for a couple of years, but only for a moment, nothing like this.”
“So, what did he do?” Mary asked.
Ross wiped his eyes again with his handkerchief and took a deep breath. “He put his arm around me and told me that we’d work it out,” he said. “He told me he had a plan.”
Mary wiped a stray tear from her cheek.
“He sounds like a good guy,” she said.
“He saved my job,” Ross whispered. “He’d come i
n early in the morning or stay late and prepared the experiments for both of our classes. He trained student Chemistry captains and gave them extra credit to help in my classroom. No one knew, not for a long time and by the time they found out, I’d been tenured and my job was safe.”
“By then Charlie was dead,” she said.
“Yeah, I know Charlie would have gotten that tenure, and he deserved it,” he said. “I welcomed him being head of the department because I also knew he’d protect me. And I sure didn’t want to have to go to conventions and speak, not with the Parkinson’s.”
“So, Charlie’s death didn’t help you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, I called in sick half the time between his death and the tenure decision,” he said. “And, to be honest, I was sick. My good friend was dead and I hadn’t been able to get anyone to listen to the truth about it.”
“What?” Mary asked.
“After the fire, I found out that one of my beakers had been tampered with too,” he said. “Since Charlie prepared them both the night before, I took half of them to my lab. My senior class was later than Charlie’s so we never got to do the experiments. When I heard it was beakers that exploded I tested them and found a chemical in it that Charlie wouldn’t have added to it. But there wasn’t enough in any of them for an explosion.”
“You told the authorities?” Mary asked.
He shook his head. “Yes, I told them, but no one wanted to listen. Those investigators they brought in, they had their answers before they even started. So, I decided maybe I needed to do a little investigation of my own.”
“You did an investigation?” she asked.
He nodded. “Got all kinds of evidence. Figured someday someone would come looking, wanting to know the truth.”
“Well, Mr. Gormley, today is that day.”
Chapter Forty-one
Mary walked up the steps to the second floor of City Hall and hurried to Bradley’s office. “Hi Dorothy,” she said to his assistant. “Is Bradley in?”
Dorothy nodded. “Yes, he’s looking through some old reports,” she said. “You can go on in.”
“Good morning,” she said, softly closing the door behind her.
He looked up from the report and a smile spread across his face. “Morning,” he said. “So, have you solved the case yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but I think I can cross at least one name off the suspect list.”
“Who?”
“I met with Ross Gormley this morning,” she said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “He didn’t kill Charlie. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
“Did his son know that?” Bradley asked.
Mary shook her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.
He closed the file and pushed it to the side of his desk. “You know what the problem is?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, what’s the problem.”
He motioned her closer. “I really think we need to be careful about who hears this,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning across his desk.
Moving closer, she asked anxiously, “What is it?”
Shaking his head, he leaned even further across the desk, so she could feel his breath on her face. “Every time I start reading these reports, a mental image of you in silk stockings and a black dress pops into my head and I’m useless.”
She bit her lower lip to contain the laughter. ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” she lied.
He reached up, slid his hand around her neck and pulled her even closer. “Yeah, well, I’m not,” he said, reaching up and kissing her.
A discreet knock on the door had them pulling apart like guilty teenagers. Mary jumped off the desk and was already standing next to the window when Dorothy came through the door with a handful of files.
“Thank you, Dorothy,” Bradley said, clearing his throat. “Is there anything else?”
Dorothy seemed to be having a difficult time schooling her features into the professional reserve she usually maintained. “Well, sir,” she said. “I think it might be beneficial if you move the mobile intercom from where you have it on your desk.”
“I’m sorry?” Bradley asked, looking at the metal box sitting below him on the desk.
“Well, sir, when you lean forward on your desk, you inadvertently press the button,” she said.
Bradley looked down at the button, over at Mary and his face began to slowly turn red. “When I lean forward I accidentally press the intercom button,” he repeated. “And perhaps that recently happened?”
Dorothy nodded. “And I must say that most of the officers online agree that Miss O’Reilly dressed in silk stockings and a black dress would be distracting to them too.”
Mary clapped her hand over her mouth and turned to the window.
Bradley loosened his shirt collar. “Thank you, Dorothy, I appreciate your advice,” he said, picking up the intercom and moving it to the other side of his desk. “And I appreciate your quick intervention.”
Then he smiled at Mary. “And, for the record, even without silk stockings she is quite distracting.”
Once the door closed Mary dissolved into a fit of laughter. “Oh, Bradley, I am so sorry,” she chortled. “But you should have seen your face.”
He didn’t say a word, just met her eyes, slowly stood up and walked away from his desk. Their eyes locked, he moved next to her, reached past her and systematically closed all of the blinds. Then reaching backwards, he pressed the button on the intercom. “Dorothy, I’m going to kiss Miss O’Reilly now, do I have an all clear?”
He heard his assistant giggle. “Yes, sir, you do.”
“Go Chief!” one of his officers called, followed by a chorus of whistles and encouragement.
He lifted his finger from the button and slipped his hands up Mary’s arms, finally cradling her face in his hands. “Do I have the all clear, Miss O’Reilly?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, you do.”
He angled his face and brushed his lips against hers. She moaned softly and he captured it in his mouth. “Mary,” he sighed and crushed his lips against hers.
Chapter Forty-two
Ian looked up from his computer when the front door opened and Mary and Bradley entered carrying several large boxes. “Well, welcome,” he said. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“Bradley thought working from here would be less distracting,” Mary said, with a grin. “Besides, I want to see how brilliant you really are.”
They placed the boxes on the kitchen table and Ian followed them.
“And what do we have here?” he asked.
“A legacy of friendship,” Mary replied, taking the top off the first box. “These are samples, photos and notes about the explosion from Ross Gormley.”
“What?” Ian asked, pulling the top off the next box.
“Ross didn’t think it was an accident, so he did his own investigation,” Mary explained, “when the authorities wouldn’t listen to him, he carefully catalogued it all, hoping one day someone would ask the right questions.”
Ian picked up a glass slide and looked at it. “Great, but how are we supposed to study these...”
Mary opened a third box and pulled out a microscope. “It’s not fancy,” she said. “But I hope it will do the trick.”
“Aye, it’ll be fine,” Ian said, glancing through the notes. “It looks like he put this information together so it was thorough enough to hold up in a court of law. The man’s brilliant.”
Two hours later, Ian looked up from his stack of papers and shook his head. “He even has pieces of wire that were taped to the floor that ran back to the detonator.”
“So, someone was watching to see when the last student got out and then ignited the bomb,” Mary said.
“So, who is our prime suspect?” Bradley asked. “We’ve got a lot of evidence, but do we have a name?”
“Well, chemicals and cover ups come from our good friends at B
&R,” Ian said.
“Yeah, but why?” Mary asked. “What would they have against Coach Thorne?”
The door opened and Rosie and Stanley came in. “I took the long away around,” Stanley said. “I don’t think anyone followed me.”
“Since I couldn’t go to my place, we stopped by the Historical Society and borrowed a yearbook from the year Coach Thorne died,” Rosie said. “I thought it would be helpful.”
She opened the book up on the table and turned to the photo of her class.
“Wow, Walter is a different person,” Bradley said.
“Really, what’s different?” Mary asked.
“He’s about four times that size now,” Rosie said. “He doesn’t look healthy at all.”
Mary told them about the conversation she had with Walter’s father.
“I wonder if Walter realized just how much Coach Thorne did for his father,” Rosie mused.
“Probably not,” Stanley said. “Ain’t something a dad would want to share with his teenaged son.”
“Oh, there’s your friend, Stevo,” Mary said, scanning the photo. “But I don’t see his wife, Lo.”
“Oh, she wasn’t in our class,” Rosie said. “She was in the class below ours.”
“She wasn’t in the Chemistry class when the fire occurred?” Mary asked.
Rosie shook her head. “No, she didn’t have it until the following year.”
“I’d like to visit with Lo Morris,” Mary said. “She said something that’s been bothering me. I don’t think I’ll be very long, Rosie would you stay here and wait for the children?”
“Oh, I’d love too,” she said. “I’ll make more cookies.”
“Oh, Rosie,” Ian said, “Bless you.”
“If it’s alright with you,” Bradley said. “I’d like to bring this evidence to the lab and get it tested. Ian would you mind giving me a hand?”
“No, I’d love to hear what the fellows at the lab think of it,” he said, slipping into his coat.
“Well, iffen you all think it’s fine, I’d like to stop by and talk with Caleb Brandlocker,” Stanley said. “He suffered a stroke a while back, he’s over in the nursing home.”