Innocent Bystander (11 page)

At exactly four forty-five in the afternoon, Burnett flopped into a chair before the desktop computer in Clara Potts’s living room. Three-and-a-half hours earlier, he’d safely returned to the condo he now considered home.

The remainder of his journey had been time-consuming, but uneventful. Two hours after arriving, he’d reclined on Clara’s sofa and fruitlessly attempted to get a little sleep. As he’d tried to relax, the shadow of a person passed by the window. He’d convinced himself that this individual had paused and peered into the room.

He’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying to shake off the feeling, attributing it to his shiny new sense of paranoia. But the sensation clung to him.

That uneasy feeling persisted as he typed the name Professor Connor Desmond into the Google search box. A tenth of a second later, thirty-five thousand results appeared. He clicked the first one. A page opened with a concise biography that listed all of Desmond’s published papers.

He’d previously read the articles, which had been published in the open-access journal,
Physics Considered
. In his opinion, and from how others had described it, Desmond’s research was average—nothing groundbreaking, but nothing to be ashamed of.

What interested Burnett were the peer reviews of Desmond’s work. Among his list of complaints, Henri Laroche had argued that their professor had consistently submitted below average work and that the editor of the journal had instructed a carefully chosen group of referees to only find ways to improve the manuscript. No negative feedback was permitted.

The time had come to use the password Henri had stolen. It took several minutes to pry it from long-term memory.

Once inside the account, he navigated around and located peer reviews for several papers Desmond had submitted. Each paper had been subjected to a single blind review; the reviewer knew who’d written the paper, but the author was unaware who had critiqued his work.

True to what Henri had said, the reviews featured page after page of recommendations on how to improve the manuscripts. Not a single harsh word had been written, and communications from the senior editor always indicated an article would be published once the suggested changes had been made.

Digging deeper, Burnett discovered that a referee had been dismissed after he’d written a scathing review of one of Desmond’s submissions. The reviewer had dubbed the paper, which attempted to depict the state of the universe immediately following the Big Bang, “laughable and a disgrace to scientific reasoning.”

Guess someone didn’t read the memo
.

A subsequent e-mail, again from the senior editor, apologized for the review and assured him it would never happen again. It appeared Desmond had a high-ranking supporter over at
Physics Considered
. Either that or he’d bribed the editor into furthering his career.

It surprised Burnett when he caught himself feeling sorry for his instructor. Even with all the support and advice, the man’s entire body of work could be summed up in one word: ordinary. He wouldn’t be remembered for any contribution to the world of physics. He would be less than a footnote in the field.

Perhaps he had unearthed Desmond’s motivation. He knew the professor had aspirations of greatness. Since he could not achieve it on his own, maybe he could have convinced Audrey to play the part of a time-traveler from the future. As to why Desmond would have done this, rather than just eliminate Henri and dispose of his body, as the professor had threatened to do with him, he was uncertain. If his goal had indeed been to make Henri suffer first, he had accomplished it.

Little doubt remained that Desmond had Henri’s computer, yet any hope of convincing the police would require far more evidence than he had.

* * *

Emma burst through the door to Mr. Frank’s office. He sat at his desk, a phone squashed to his ear, listened a moment, and muttered a hurried goodbye.

“You have news for me?” Emma said, unwilling to check the enthusiasm in her voice. “How’d you find out so fast?”

“I have my methods.” He clasped his hands and thumped them on his desk. He rolled his chair forward and back twice, refusing to meet her gaze.

Why’s he stalling?
She understood why he’d chosen not to reveal anything over the phone. The police could easily intercept a call to a cell phone. But she’d rushed here at breakneck speed after he’d called and claimed he had information on Burnett’s whereabouts.

“You going to tell me or keep me in suspense a little longer?” Emma said. She’d managed to elude the tail that had been all but glued to her rear bumper and burst through his door in under ten minutes.

“You sure you want to do this?” Mr. Frank asked.

“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.

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.