Innocent Bystander (20 page)

The car fought his efforts to steer. At the next intersection he struggled to make a right. He blazed south on a busy Route 1. Two police cruisers became four. He weaved the sports coupe around two SUVs, but couldn’t shake the cruisers.

Another gunshot and another blown tire left the Mercedes nearly uncontrollable. He maneuvered it into a strip mall parking lot. As it rolled to a stop, he and Emma jumped out.

They sprinted behind the mall. Near total darkness met them. A dozen yards back of the plaza he scaled a six-foot fence. Emma followed him over.

The howl of police sirens filled the night.

“Stone’s house is less than a mile,” he said. “If we can make it, maybe—”

“We’ll never make it. Besides, he said not to come back.”

“To protect his family,” he said, uncertain whether he was trying to convince her or himself.

They sprinted through a field behind an abandoned warehouse. Streetlamps and well-lit homes cast enough light to distinguish shapes in the distance. They encountered a second, taller fence. Burnett stopped and helped her over.

Once she’d landed, he scaled the fence and jumped down. The rapid thud of footfalls froze them. Both squinted into the darkness. The woods ahead started twenty-five feet away. A flashlight bobbed in the blackness. Seconds later Detective Mayweather rattled the fence, his revolver aimed at Burnett.

“Don’t make this more difficult,” Mayweather said.

“He’s got the computer,” Burnett said. “I held it in my hands.”

“How do you know it wasn’t Desmond’s?”

“A Grateful Dead decal. It’s Henri’s.”

“Where is it now?”

“We were lucky to get out alive.”

“You had your shot.” Mayweather directed his flashlight into Burnett’s face.

He shielded his eyes and took a single step back. “You gave me that chance because you know I’m innocent.”

“Don’t move,” the detective said.

Burnett took half a step back. “He hired someone to kill us.”

Mayweather angled his head. “He was in the house?”

“Waiting for us.” Burnett retreated another step. He nodded to the right hoping she would head that way. She didn’t.

Mayweather kept his revolver pointed at Burnett’s chest. “I need to bring you in. I will find this missing computer no matter how long it takes. But I need you to surrender now.”

“You know I can’t.” He took another step back.

“Get down on the ground,” Mayweather said.

A gentle thumping in the distance grew louder. Burnett tilted his head back. A chopper knifed through the star-filled sky.

Burnett bowed.
My God.
“I don’t believe you’ll shoot me.”

“Don’t fool yourself. I’ll do what’s necessary to bring you in.”

A uniformed cop clanged into the fence. The man drew his weapon.

Burnett backed farther away. Mayweather holstered his revolver and scaled the fence. The cop struggled to follow the detective over.

Burnett and Emma charged into the dark woods. Light from Mayweather’s flashlight flickered about them like tiny flashes of lightning. The helicopter thundered overhead. Its spotlight stalked the ground.

“We have to split up,” Burnett shouted above the deafening pulse of the chopper’s blades.

“No,” Emma yelled, and ducked to avoid a tree branch.

“We have to. You know where to meet me.”

Mayweather’s flashlight lit up the side of her face for an instant. Her expression told him she was still reluctant to separate.

He tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Go.”

After two more steps she peeled off at a right angle and vanished, swallowed by the night.

Burnett slowed his pace, barely able to see anything in the dark woods. The chopper, which had drifted off, circled back toward him.

He peered over his shoulder. Three flashlights jerked side to side twenty yards back. As he faced forward he tripped over a bush and crashed to the dirt. His left elbow smacked a jagged rock. He cried out, then covered his mouth.

One flashlight became still. “Give it up, Mr. Burnett,” Mayweather said.

Burnett cradled his elbow in his right hand. He grimaced and crawled behind the bush. “I will not go to jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”

“I’ll dedicate my career to proving your innocence.”

Burnett believed him. “The computer’s at his house.”

The helicopter’s metrical thump intensified.

“You have to get it now,” Burnett yelled. “Before he gets rid of it.”

“First you need to surrender,” Mayweather shouted back. “Come out now. Hands on your head.”

Burnett winced in pain. He heard the detective holler into his vest mic. The helicopter swooped in low. Its spotlight rocked back and forth.

Mayweather’s flashlight probed the area. Two cops fanned out left and right. Burnett hoped Emma had made it safely out of the woods. Should he be caught she would help Mayweather prove Desmond’s guilt.

As the helicopter closed in, he realized its rhythmic swoosh would drown out his movements. He struggled to his feet.

The chopper’s spotlight approached in front of him, Mayweather’s flashlight from behind. Burnett spun left and ran. Before he’d taken three steps, a beam of light slashed his back.

Burnett zigzagged and dropped behind a tree. The haphazard movement of the lights suggested he’d confused them.

The helicopter hovered directly above. A canopy of trees offered cover from its spotlight. Wind from the rotors kicked up dirt, pebbles, and scrub brush. His bloody left arm shielded his face.

Burnett backed away. His hand, extended behind him, brushed a tree trunk. He felt his way around it and continued backwards.

The chopper ascended. Mayweather’s flashlight still bounced erratically. Burnett lowered his left hand and looked behind him. Through the trees he glimpsed a streetlamp.

He raced toward it. As he neared the edge of the woods, a police cruiser screeched to a stop in the street. Its headlights pointed into the woods. Two cops jumped out. They shined their flashlights down the street in opposite directions.

He retreated twenty yards into the woods and ran parallel to the street. A hundred yards down he spotted a bend in the road. He exited the woods at that point.

To his left he saw only darkness. To his right another cruiser stopped, its headlights also directed into the woods. The cops exited the vehicle. Burnett crossed the road and raced down a side street.

I just might make it
, he dared think. Exhaustion overcame him, and he slowed to a steady jog. He lowered his head. When he raised it, a police cruiser careened around the corner ahead.

He dropped to the street and rolled to the curb. Uncertain whether or not they had seen him, he scrunched into the fetal position. Ahead of him sat a minivan. He crawled forward. The cruiser raced down the street. It passed him at the same moment he reached the minivan’s front bumper. He slammed his eyes shut and waited.

When he opened them, the cruiser was gone. After thirty seconds he rolled out from beneath the minivan.

With the helicopter’s rotors punctuating the perpetual wail of police sirens, Burnett clambered to his feet and trotted away from the woods.

Emma stood at the edge of Dr. Stone’s driveway. Adrenaline surged through her nervous system. Her body trembled from the exhilaration of her narrow escapes from Desmond’s hit man and the police.
Their
narrow escapes. Surely Burnett had made it out of the woods and would soon rejoin her.

One foot in the street and one on the driveway, she swiveled her head. The distant throb of the helicopter sought to convert exhilaration into dread. Each police siren triggered a skipped heartbeat. She cursed herself for leaving him, yet refused to believe he’d been caught. Too much was at stake. He would have found a way out.

He could have been shot. No, don’t think that way
.

Burnett emerged from the darkness and trudged up to her. His chest heaved.

Relief, mixed with exhaustion, nearly dropped her to the asphalt. Blood seeped from his elbow. His clothes were speckled with dirt and broken leaves. Several scratches marked his face. It didn’t matter. She threw her arms around him. “I was so afraid they’d caught you.”

“Almost,” he said. “Almost.”

They stood for a long minute holding each other, then she and Burnett started up the driveway. As they walked in silence, shoulder to shoulder, she tuned back into the adrenaline that still pulsated through her body. She was ashamed to admit how much she enjoyed the thrill of the chase; how alive she’d felt narrowly escaping capture; the indescribable relief she’d experienced when he’d arrived safely moments ago.

She recalled his confidence in Desmond’s living room and how he’d orchestrated their escape from the house. She wondered if he’d had the plan all along or fashioned it spur of the moment. Either way, she accepted the fact that after two years, she didn’t really know him.

A loud clank jolted her from her thoughts. He had unsuccessfully tried to raise the garage door. They exchanged a concerned glance. He made a second attempt to lift it, but it was locked. He took her hand, and led her to the side of the garage. Clasping his hand bumped her adrenaline up another rung. She’d never felt that way about him before. She’d never felt that way about
anyone
before. Was it the situation that magnified every emotion, or was there something about him she hadn’t previously noticed?

At the back of the garage a door came into view in the dim light. Burnett tentatively reached out and grabbed the knob, but it didn’t turn. Disappointment elbowed in on her adrenaline. Stone didn’t want them here, and he meant it.

Burnett examined the lock. He tried the knob again, but of course it didn’t turn. After a brief pause he removed his wallet and plucked out a credit card.

“Can’t use it for anything else,” he said.

Sadness laced her smile as she watched him slide the credit card between the door and the garage wall. He brought it down over the spring latch and angled it behind. He drew the credit card forward. His first attempt failed.

On his second try he lost his grip, and the card disappeared inside the garage. An intense desire to giggle overcame her. She clamped her hand over her mouth and managed to rein it in.

What’s wrong with me?
She knew if she stopped and thought about their situation, she’d be scared and depressed. She knew if she thought about the way she’d cried for hours the night Henri died she’d feel the same way. Instead, her hand was cupped over her lips stifling a giggle.

Here she stood, twenty-two years old, the man she thought she would marry dead, her future in jeopardy, trying not to giggle like a thirteen-year-old. Just when she thought life couldn’t get any stranger, a solitary chuckle escaped her lips.

“If we can’t get in, and the cops find that card,” Burnett said. He removed another credit card.

“I know.”

As he made one attempt after another to open the door with his second card, she tried to coax her mind into focusing on what they would do if they couldn’t get in. Of course her brain didn’t cooperate, and she fretted over the consequences should they be captured. She knew he would spend the rest of his life in jail. The thought frightened her so much her body shivered.

When the shivering persisted, she realized a cold mist was the culprit. The temperature had dropped, and the water droplets chilled her as they dampened her clothes.

After a dozen attempts with the second card, Burnett quit and hung his head. He fell against the shingles, and slid into a crouched position. She didn’t need to see his face to grasp his disappointment. There was little doubt he expected Dr. Stone to help them, despite his language.

The mist graduated to a moderate drizzle. Emma scanned the dark back yard. The only structure visible, a small deck, jutted out from the kitchen.

Without a word she patted his shoulder. She repositioned her outstretched hand before him, but he didn’t take it.

“You okay?” she asked.

He offered a frustrated nod. She clasped his hand and pulled him up.

“Over here,” she said, and they walked to the edge of the deck. Horizontal two-by-eights welcomed them at eye-level. Beneath the deck only blackness awaited them.

A damp, earthy odor filled her nostrils. Her clothes, now soaked, clung to her body.

They both ducked and reached underneath. Emma felt nothing, so she edged forward. Her outstretched hand met a soggy mound of what she hoped was dirt. She twisted her body and leaned against it. A moment later she sensed him do the same.

Cold raindrops trickled between the slatted wood floor above her. She and Burnett huddled close together.

* * *

Detective Mayweather stormed into Professor Desmond’s home, a uniformed cop in tow. “You check the entire house?” Mayweather asked.

“Yeah. He’s got a safe under his desk, but won’t let us peek inside.”

Mayweather stopped outside Desmond’s office. “Forensics finish getting prints?”

“Almost.”

“Tell Carlson to put a rush on it. I need to know who’s been in this house.”

Mayweather strode into Desmond’s office. The professor waited behind his desk.

“You have no right to search my home,” Desmond said.

“This house is a crime scene, Professor. That gives us the right to search wherever we need to find evidence.”

“That does not include looking in my safe.”

“You said Mr. Burnett entered your house through that window,” Mayweather said, motioning to the torn screen.

“So?”

“We have reason to believe he may have come here for more than just chit-chat.” He debated how much to reveal about Burnett’s interest in Henri Laroche’s computer. Too much and Desmond might become overly cautious; too little and he might not get as nervous as Mayweather would like.

“We feel Mr. Burnett is after something. Mr. Laroche’s computer disappeared from his residence the night of his death. It’s possible he believes you have it.”

“You mean it’s possible he planted it here. He told me his suspicions. How could I have the computer? I was in the city that night. Took the Metro-North right after my last class. I have half-a-dozen witnesses who will testify to that.”

“Half-a-dozen?” Mayweather said with mock surprise. “Wealthy guy like you rides the train?”

Desmond shrugged off the remark.

“There was a girl in Mr. Laroche’s apartment that night,” Mayweather said.

“The one you think Burnett killed.”

“The one who was found dead in his trunk.”

“What about her?”

“She could have taken it. Given it to someone.”

“Are you implying she gave it to me?”

“No.”

“Then why bring it up?”

Mayweather hadn’t gotten a rise out of him. He decided to change the course of their conversation. “How about you open the safe. If it’s not there, we can go on as if all of this never happened.”

“As I said, how do you know he didn’t plant it there? To incriminate me?”

Desmond sounded worried.

“If we find Mr. Burnett’s fingerprints on it,” Mayweather said, “but not yours, then that would all but prove he planted it.”

Desmond nodded hesitantly, then stopped. “He could have easily found the combination. I have another safe at the university. I have both combinations written down—hidden of course—in my office there.”

Now Desmond sounded uncomfortable. Mayweather felt confident he would find the computer inside. Exactly what he would do afterwards, he felt less certain about.

Desmond knelt in front of the safe. He dialed in the combination, grabbed the handle, and opened the door. Mayweather peered inside. His heart sank when he discovered it contained only a half-dozen files and what appeared to be a safe deposit key.

Burnett lied. Desmond could have hidden the computer elsewhere, of course. At that moment it didn’t seem as likely as it would have earlier.

Mayweather tried to regroup. “Were you here alone when Burnett showed up?”

“No apology?”

“Not for doing my job.”

“Yes, I was alone.”

“Your wife?”

“At her sister’s across town. Call her or ask her when she gets home.”

Mayweather shut the safe. “That won’t be necessary. I appreciate your cooperation.” He had a final question for Desmond.

“Was there something else?” Desmond asked.

The professor’s tone, confident, bordering on cocky, provoked Mayweather’s desire to punch the man’s lights out. “Dr. De Stefano is still missing. His wife’s extremely upset. She’s convinced something’s happened. What do you think?”

“I hope not. He had some rather sizable gambling debts. Please don’t tell his wife. She doesn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Two reasons. It’s not something he’s proud of, not something I want people, especially his wife, to find out about. And I don’t know if it has anything to do with why he’s missing.”

“I thought you only had a ‘professional, courteous relationship.’ How do you know things his wife and other people don’t?”

“I overheard him tell Dean Marshall. He’d asked for a raise to help cover some of his debt.”

At a loss as to how to proceed, Mayweather fell against the desk. Desmond had an answer for every question, and his faith in Burnett ebbed with each reply.

Farrow entered the office. “Carlson’s done in the living room.” He faced Desmond. “We’ll be out of your hair in just a few minutes.”

“I appreciate that, Detective. But I do not appreciate being treated like a suspect.”

Farrow returned Desmond’s glare with a puzzled expression.

“Looking inside my safe? Burnett never touched it. He was in this room less than a minute. I was here when he came in. There was no need to look inside. I have private, highly personal information there. And looking for some computer that I could be hiding. I was not informed that was part of your investigation.”

Mayweather recognized instantly that he’d been granted access to the safe only so Desmond could whine about it afterward. If the professor was indeed the architect of this crime, gathering evidence against him would now be next to impossible.

There was no need for him to glance over his shoulder. He could feel Farrow’s eyes drill into the side of his head. There would be no way to justify his actions. His faith in Burnett, which had absorbed multiple hits this evening, had now landed him in trouble.

“I understand your need to search my home for clues, and I believe I have been more than accommodating. But if I am a suspect in this investigation, please let me know so I may contact my lawyer. If not, I would appreciate my privacy respected.”

“That is not part of our investigation,” Farrow said. “Nor are you a person of interest. And on behalf of the department, I apologize for this unwarranted intrusion into your privacy.”

Farrow stepped into the hallway. When Mayweather didn’t immediately follow, he shot him an angry look. Mayweather, still concocting a defense, caught his partner’s glare and hustled out.