Bumpy Roads - A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book 11) (The Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery Series) (7 page)

“I’ve spent last night getting to know you,” Celia said as
she entered Mary’s office.

“I beg your pardon?” Mary replied.

Smiling, Celia slipped off her coat and hung it on the
coatrack near the door. “I did some Internet research on you last night,” she
explained.

Sitting back in her chair, Mary pushed slightly away from
the desk, took a sip of her Diet Pepsi and nodded. “Did you learn anything
interesting?”

Celia nodded. “Yes, actually, I did. It’s amazing how much
you’ve done with your gift.”

“I didn’t realize I was even on the Internet.”

“Not only in the news, but there are a lot of discussions
about you on forums, especially paranormal forums,” Celia added. “Some of it’s
quite fantastic and some isn’t very flattering.”

“Well, you can’t believe everything you read,” Mary replied
with a smile.

Studying the woman in front of her, Celia wondered if she
was indeed some miraculous psychic who was led by spirit helpers to solve
murder cases or, on the other hand, if she was the crackpot detective
wanna
-be that others on a few Internet forums suggested.

“Which should I believe?” Celia asked.

Laughing quietly, Mary nodded. “Good question. I think the
best answer to that is that you need to determine for yourself who I am and if
I’m crazy or not,” she said with a self-depreciating smile. “I’m fine if you
want to reserve judgment for a little while. Work with me, but hold back if you
need to.”

“So, what is it like?” Celia asked unexpectedly.

“What is what like?” Mary asked
,
a
little confused at this turn in the conversation.

“Dying.”

Taking a deep breath, Mary nodded slowly and put her soft
drink on the desk. “Getting right to the heart of the matter, so to speak,
that’s fair.”
 

Sitting forward in her chair, she placed her elbows on her
desk and rested her head on her heads, meeting Celia’s eyes directly. “Well,
the getting shot part is not something I’d recommend. But the going to the
light part is…” she paused for a moment, looking down at the desk, trying to
find the right words. “It’s like having amnesia. You forget about any problems
or worries, you’re just free and walking toward something you know is going to
be great.
 
You have this amazing sense of
tranquility and peace…and there’s also a familiarity about it.
Like you’re finally going home.”

Mary looked up to find Celia’s eyes filled with tears. “And
then?” Celia prompted; her voice thick with emotion.

“Well, for me, that’s where it ended,” Mary explained. “I
was given a choice and I choose to return and I suppose you know the rest of
the story.”

“And you’ve been working with ghosts ever since?”

“No, I’ve been working with people ever since,” Mary
replied. “It just so happens that some of them are dead.”

Celia smiled. “I like that; it makes them seem less scary.”

“When you get the chance to know them, most of them aren’t
scary at all,” she said. “They just need some help finding their way back
home.”

Pulling out a tissue and blotting her eyes, Celia nodded,
“So, what should we do first?”

Mary smiled.
 
It
seemed that Celia had already made her up her mind about her. She moved a
folder to the middle of her desk and opened it. “The first question I have is
about other cases that are similar to Courtney’s case,” she said. “If there
have been other disappearances, perhaps we can link things together and see if
there are any connections.”

Pulling out
her own
folder, Celia
opened it and pushed it across the desk toward Mary.
 
“Although the police haven’t made any
connections,” she said. “I’ve been doing research on missing children,
especially girls, in the area and I’ve found quite a few that I think match the
profile.”

Mary flipped through the newspaper articles from the various
small towns in the areas and the Amber Alert press releases attached to the
articles.
 
“Why don’t the police believe
these are connected?” she asked.

Celia sighed. “Well, to be fair, I’ve never shown these to the
new police chief,” she admitted. “But the former police chief didn’t seem to have
any interest in these cases because there were in other smaller towns in the
county. And, we don’t have a database that links one jurisdiction to the other,
so the connections might get overlooked.”

“But what about the FBI?
 
Wouldn’t they have linked the
disappearances?” Mary asked.

Shrugging, Celia sat back in her chair. “It could have been
that they were far enough apart from each other that the connections weren’t
made,” she said. “And it didn’t help that the police department had to install
a brand new computer system four years ago. A lot of the cases never got
transitioned to the new system.”

“So there might be other cases, older
cases,
that
relate to Courtney’s case?” she asked.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Celia said. “But we have to go into the
archives to get them.”

Standing up and putting the files into her briefcase, Mary
was ready for action. “Let’s go down to city hall and get access,” she said.

“But how are we going to get permission?” Celia asked.

Mary smiled. “Let me worry about that,” she replied. “I know
a guy who owes me.”

The preschool playground was empty, so Maggie and Clarissa
hurried to the swing set as soon as they were released for recess. Through an
unspoken agreement, neither child said anything until they had seated
themselves on adjacent swings and set them barely moving.

“So, what happened last night?” Maggie asked. “Did Mike tell
on you?”

Shaking her head, Clarissa smiled at her friend. “No, he
just checked on me before I said my prayers and asked me if I had learned my
lesson,” she replied.

“So, what did you say?”

“I told him I learned my lesson really well,” she said with
a grin. “But he doesn’t know the lesson was not to get caught.”

Maggie didn’t laugh. “I’m still worried about that man,” she
said. “I think we need to tell someone.”

Clarissa swung in silence for the next few moments. “Bradley
didn’t come home last night,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“He didn’t come home from work,” Clarissa replied. “It’s
already starting.
 
He doesn’t want to
spend time with me.”

Skidding
her swing to a stop,
Maggie turned to her friend. “I just can’t believe that,” she said. “He loves
you.”

Shrugging, Clarissa continued to swing. “Well, maybe he
did,” she said. “And Mary was pretty upset about it too. I’m sure she doesn’t
want to be stuck taking care of me.”

“Did she say that?” Maggie asked.

Forcing herself to be honest, Maggie shook her head. “No,
she didn’t. She was nice to me and she was trying hard to be happy. But I could
tell she was upset,” she said. “And later on, I heard her talking to Mike. And
Mike asked her if Bradley was abandoning Mary and me.”

Pushing her feet against the sandy dirt, Clarissa started
the swing moving higher into the sky.

“What did Mary say?” Maggie demanded, jumping off her swing.

Clarissa shrugged once again. “I don’t know,” she said. “I
didn’t want to hear any more, so I closed my door.”

“Well, was he there when you got up this morning?” Maggie
asked.

Shaking her head, Clarissa pumped her legs to bring the
swing even higher, trying to hide her watery eyes from her friend. “No he
wasn’t,” she said. “And I don’t even care. If he wants to abandon me, I’ll be
fine. I did just fine by myself in Chicago and I can do fine in Freeport.”

Maggie climbed back onto her swing, angrily pushing off the
ground. “Of course you care,” she said. “You can’t lie to me, Clarissa. Did you
ask Mike about it?”

“No,” Clarissa replied angrily. “’Cause all he would do is
lie
to me.”

“Angels can’t lie,” Maggie said. “So he would tell you the
truth.”

Clarissa continued to swing in silence while Maggie waited
for her response. Finally, after a few minutes, Maggie sighed and just swung
next to her friend in silence. They swung back and forth, the metal chains
squeaking as they moved back and forth over the round casings that held them in
place.
 
The sun came out from behind a
cloud and the girls could see their shadows gliding back and forth over the
playground sand.

Finally Clarissa spoke. “Maggie.”

“Uh, huh?”

“I didn’t ask Mike because I was afraid he would say yes,”
she said softly.

“Isn’t it better to know?” Maggie asked. “That way you can
make plans?”

A single tear slipped down Clarissa’s cheek and she brushed
it away quickly. “I guess,” she said. “But he loved me before he and Mary got
married. He always had time for me then.”

Maggie stuck her legs straight out so her swing slowly lost
altitude. “Maybe stuff changes when people get married. My parents aren’t all
goofy and lovey-dovey like Mary and Bradley.”

“Maybe.
And maybe if they weren’t
married any more he wouldn’t want to abandon me,” Clarissa said. “Maybe he’s
just tired of Mary.”

Shrugging, Maggie hopped off the swing as the end-of-recess
bell rang. “I don’t think so, besides there’s nothing you can do about that,”
she said.

Clarissa took her time sliding off the swing, a
contemplative look on her face. “Well, maybe there is,” she whispered to
herself.

Bradley hurried down the hall to the board room at the
school district building.
 
The walls
filled with art from students throughout Freeport, were incongruous with the
thoughts racing through his mind. Each of the children recorded in the FBI
reports had been students in the Freeport School District, even though they had
been from not only the city of Freeport, but also the surrounding small towns.
And, except for Courtney Rasmussen, all of the children were also reported
absent on the day of their disappearance. Although that could just point to a
kidnapper who snatched children on their way to school, he had to wonder if it
didn’t have something to do with the school district itself.

The board room door was slightly ajar and Bradley entered
without knocking. He had always felt that during an investigation he needed to
place himself in a position of power and then watch the reaction of the people
in the room.
 
He noted, however, that the
superintendent had the same idea about power, as the chair at the head of the
table was filled by the superintendent and the one to his right, the
subordinate seat, was left for Bradley.

Well, hell,
Bradley thought,
good move, Nick, but
I don’t really need a seat.

Striding to the front of the room and stopping in front of
the large whiteboard, Bradley nodded to the eight people around the table.
“Thank you all for being so prompt,” he began. “Let’s begin this meeting
without delay.”

Everyone but Nick Sears, the superintendent, had a good view
of Bradley and the whiteboard, but Nick had to crane his neck in order to see.

“Nick, why don’t you take the chair next to you, so you can
get a better view of the whiteboard,” Bradley suggested, biting back a smile.

Slightly disgruntled, Nick moved to the subordinate seat,
sending Bradley a look of impatience. “Well, Alden, we don’t have all day,” he
snapped. “Would you like to tell us why you’ve pulled us all together?”

“Julie, would you close the door?” Bradley asked.

Julie Quinn, the head of human resources, jumped up and
closed the door.

“Thanks,” Bradley said. “The information I share with you
today is confidential and normally I wouldn’t be speaking with such a large
group, but it is essential that we work together. As you know, another child
was kidnapped yesterday.
 
A child from the Freeport School District.”

“Well, yes, but really the school district has nothing to do
with the kidnapping,” Nick said, dismissing Bradley’s comment.

“Actually, Nick, it does,” Bradley said. “And I’ll explain
that correlation in a moment.”

He paused, trying to decide how he was going to share
information with the group without giving away too much.
 
He suddenly realized that the kidnapper might
be one of the people sitting in the meeting.

“But, before I go any further, I’d like each of you to
introduce yourselves and tell me how you interact with the attendance records
for the district,” he said. “Let’s start with you, Nick.”

“Actually, it’s Dr. Sears,” he began. “I have a PhD in
school administration.”

What a jerk
,
Bradley thought.

“My apologies, Dr. Sears,” Bradley said, emphasizing the
word doctor. “Please continue.”

“I actually have nothing to do with the attendance records,”
Nick said. “I leave those kinds of details to my subordinates.”

“Well, actually,” Julie Quinn, a middle-aged woman with
graying hair, interjected, “you do see the attendance records, Dr. Sears. We
put a report on your desk by ten o’clock every morning.”

“Who else gets that report, Julie?” Bradley asked, cutting
Nick off before he could argue.

Julie smiled at Bradley. “Well, actually, everyone at this
table,” she said. “Most of us get it as a hard copy, but Ray and Mark get it
emailed to them.”

“Ray?” Bradley asked, looking around the table.

An older man nodded and raised his hand; he had salt-and-pepper
hair and an easy smile. “That’s me, Ray Giles,” he said. “I’m the truancy
officer for the district. I get the reports every morning, although, for the
most part I work off another report that lists the number of unexcused
contiguous absences. I don’t do much with that first report because the parents
can call and excuse their child up to forty-eight hours after an absence.”

“Who runs the other report?” Bradley asked.

“That would be me,” a young man with shaggy hair raised his
hand. “I’m Mark.”

Mark was the only person in the room not dressed in business
clothing. His Metallica t-shirt was faded and stretched out and he looked like
he had just rolled out of bed to attend the meeting.

“Mark,” Bradley repeated. “What is your position?”

Shrugging, Mark leaned back in his chair and yawned.
“Sorry,” he apologized quickly. “I’m a computer consultant for the district. I
work from my home office. Jules sends me the data and I run a bunch of reports,
mostly for the state, you know, to get their funding. But I run other stuff
too.”

“Okay, thank you,” Bradley said
,
turning to a young black woman dressed in a professional suit sitting next to
Julie. “And what do you do?”

“I’m Angela Norris,” she said, her voice clear and eloquent.
“And I’m the Director of Equity. I collect, analyze and report data on equity
programs and student performance.”

“Do you receive the same reports as the others?” Bradley
asked.

“I receive those reports and I also have Mark run reports
for me that also focus on the students of color throughout the district,” she
said. “That would be the only report that would be different than the other
people of the administrative team.”

“Thank you, Angela,” Bradley said.

“I’m Kelly, Kelly Sellers,” said a young blonde woman
wearing a low cut blouse, seated across from Nick. “I’m Nick…I mean, the
superintendent’s secretary.”

Bradley bit back a smile.
Yes, I bet you are.

“Thank you, Kelly,” Bradley said. “And are your reports any
different from the others at the table?”

“How do you mean different?” she asked, confused.

He paused for a moment, trying to find the right words.
“Other than the attendance report that Julie sends you, do you receive any
other reports from Mark?”

She turned to Mark. “Do I receive any other reports from
you?”

He shook his head.
“No, sweetheart, just
the attendance reports.”

She smiled up at Bradley.
“No, just the
attendance reports.”

“Thank you, Kelly,” he said, trying to ignore the rolling
eyes of most of the others at the meeting.

He did notice, however, that Nick didn’t seem to be bothered
by her responses. Of course, he also noted that Nick’s eyes never traveled up
further that Kelly’s neckline.

There were two final people he hadn’t met yet, one man and
one woman.
 
He started to turn to the
woman, when the man interjected. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude,” he said.
“But I have to file my report with the state in thirty minutes. Do you think we
are going to be much longer?”

“And you are?” Bradley asked.

“Ken Cannon,” he replied, “I work in the Business Office.
I’m a CPA.”

“Ken, I will try to wrap this up quickly,” he said. “Which
reports do you receive?”

“Only attendance,” he said. “And my report doesn’t have any
personal information in it. I just need the numbers of students absent and from
which school. Then I can send the information to the state and run my numbers
to make sure we are keeping close to budget.”

“Budget?”
Bradley asked.

“The state only pays us for the number of students per day,”
he said. “I try and estimate what our attendance will be and we build our
budget on that. But, for example, if we get a bad case of flu and we have a lot
of students missing school, I have to readjust the budget.”

“Okay, thank you,” he said, turning to the only person who
hadn’t introduced herself. “Hi, if you could…”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she blurted
out. “My husband is a lawyer and he told me I didn’t have to say anything to
you.”

“I’m sorry…” Bradley paused and waited.

“Kimberly…Kimberly Shelby,” she replied.

He nodded and smiled at her. “Kimberly,” he said. “I
understand your apprehension, but this meeting is only informational.
 
It might not lead to anything, but I need to
dot
all the i’s and cross all the
t’s
.
 
Does that make sense?”

She nodded slowly. “So, you really are just looking into the
disappearance of the little girl,” she said, “not investigating any budgetary
issues?”

Bradley saw Ken raise his eyebrow and look in Kimberly’s
direction. “Just the little girl,” he said, wondering what in the world she was
covering up.

“Okay, I get the reports every morning and I highlight them
for any students under my area,” she said. “Then, because my students are in
special education classes, I make phone calls right away to be sure there isn’t
a problem.”

“And that’s all you do with the attendance report?” he
asked.

Shrugging, she glanced around the room and bit her lower
lip. “I also hand it out for scratch paper for some of the classes to use,” she
said.

“But that’s confidential information,” Julie exclaimed. “You
should be shredding it.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s very green,” Kimberly argued.
“Besides, I only let the younger classes use it, they can’t even read.”

“But their parents can, if they bring their work home,”
Bradley stated. “How soon after a report is given to you, do you give the paper
away?”

“I collect the reports from the week before and give it to
them on Monday,” she said. “So it’s old by then.”

Bradley took a deep breath. “Okay, one more question. Does
anyone else share the reports with anyone else?”

Mark hesitantly raised his hand. “I’ve got a couple of
interns who do work for me,” he said. “Sometimes they look through the report.
They know some of the kids from the school.”

“How soon after you get the data do they see it?”

“Could be right away,” he said. “We’re networked together,
so they know when it’s in the file.”

Julie shook her head. “Well, maybe we should just publish it
in the paper.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Julie,” Nick inserted
pompously. “We really don’t have the budget to do that.”

“I was being facetious, Dr. Sears,” she said.

“Oh, of course you were,” he stammered.
“Me
too.”

Most of these people
are too stupid to be kidnappers
, Bradley thought.

“Okay, thanks for your time,” he said. “Julie, if I could
ask you a couple of questions about the reports, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure Bradley,” she replied. “Why don’t you come down to my
office?”

Bradley nodded to her, and then turned to Nick. “Thank you,
Dr. Sears, for setting the time aside for your staff to meet with me,” he said.

“Well, yes, of course,” he blustered, getting out of his
chair and walking over to Bradley. “We need to watch out for all of those
little girls, don’t we?”

Bradley looked down at the man who only reached halfway up
his chest and nodded.

“Yes, we do,” Bradley agreed. “Yes, we do.”