Final Call (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Once she accessed her Internet, she found that Bradley had
sent her the notes from his interviews with all of the suspects. She
cross-referenced those names with the list Dan sent her and found they had
covered most of their bases. The saddest part was, there were so many people in
the community who had a good reason to see this woman dead.

“I can’t believe this woman,” Mary said. “What in the world
makes someone act like this?”

“You’d like to believe it was something traumatic in their
childhood, right?” Mike asked her.

Nodding, she had to admit that’s where her thoughts were
leading.

“Sometimes, Mary, people are just nasty and they like
power,” he said. “No reason, no cause, they just like to be bullies.”

It just didn’t ring true to her. People weren’t born bad or
nasty. Something occurred somewhere in their lives that taught them to protect
themselves with hard exteriors, so they weren’t hurt again.

“I just don’t believe that,” she said. “I believe all people
are basically good and circumstances change them.”

“And that’s one of our biggest differences,” he replied.
“Well, other than the whole I’m dead and you’re
alive
thing. You see the good and I see the realistic.”

“I think realistic is just another word for cynical,” she
said.

“Yeah, well, try being a fireman for a little while,” he
said. “You’ll be amazed at what people try to hide under the cover of a house fire.”

She turned away from her computer and faced him. “Tell me,”
she said.

“I don’t think…” he began, and then he met her eyes. “Okay,
but it’s not pretty. Couple of years ago, maybe going on four now, we get a
call for a house fire. Nice residential neighborhood. We rush over and the
place is engulfed in flames, I’ve never seen a house fire burn so hot so fast.”

He stopped talking for a moment and rubbed his hand over his
eyes. “So, I put on the air mask, grab my ax and I’m going in,” he said. “I
mean a house like that has
gotta
have kids inside. I
take out the front door and run up the stairs. It’s like ten o’clock on a
school night, so I figure they’re upstairs in bed.”

“That makes sense,” Mary said.

“So, I’m fighting flames the whole time going up the stairs.
It’s weird because it seems like the fire started upstairs and most house fires
start downstairs in the kitchen or utility room,” he continued. “I get to the
first room. I remember it’s all pink and white, a little girl’s room. And there
she is all tucked in for the night.”

“You found her, before the fire got to her,” Mary exclaimed.

“Yeah, before the fire,” he repeated sadly. “So, I grab her
and she’s limp. I think smoke inhalation, but the smoke wasn’t bad enough in
her room. So, I pulled my mask and gloves off to take a better reading…”

His voice cracked and he took a moment, just staring across
the room.

“That’s when I see the bruising on her neck,” he whispered.
“Bastard of a father decided he didn’t like paying child support any more.
Figured that not only would the fire cover up the murders, he’d get a nice
settlement from the insurance company.”

“Oh, God,” Mary gasped, covering her mouth.
“How...how many?”

“Three kids and his ex,” he answered. “The youngest was
two.”

There were no words. Mary couldn’t think of anything to say.
She just sat at her desk and stared at Mike.

“Don’t tell me that he did this because he was mistreated as
a child,” Mike whispered. “Don’t tell me he is good on the inside.”

She shook her head. “No. No, I can’t. I am so sorry, Mike.”

He nodded and started to fade. “One of these days I’ll take
you over there,” he said. “Just to be sure the kids got home safely, okay?”

“Mike, are you okay?”

He turned to her, his eyes filled with sorrow. “Sometimes
when I’m with you,” he said softly, “I miss being alive.”

Once again, as he faded from her view, there was nothing she
could say.

Chapter Twenty-four

Her cell phone rang and she jumped. She’d been staring at
the computer screen, willing an answer to appear, but nothing was happening.

“Mary O’Reilly,” she answered absently, without looking at
the caller information.

“Well, who else would be answering your phone at 11:30 p.m.?”
her brother, Sean, asked.

“Hi Sean.
What’s up?”

“I just e-mailed you the information you wanted about Faye
McMullen,” he said. “Not a lot of history. She’s led a pretty tame life. But
she was loaded when she died.”

Mary perked up.
“Really?
I knew she
had money, but loaded?”

Sean named an amount in the high eight digits. “Wow,” Mary
exclaimed. “Now that’s money worth killing for.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. “There’s an angle
you and Bradley should investigate.”

“Yeah, we should,” Mary agreed shortly.

“What?”

“What do you
mean,
what?” she
asked.

“Mary, I’ve known you all your life, something’s wrong.
What?” he repeated.

“Okay, you asked for it, I’m having a really heavy period
this month,” she began. “It started out as usual...”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said. “You can’t scare me off with
womanly issues. That wasn’t a womanly issue response. That was a Bradley’s a
big fat jerk response.”

How did he get to be so smart?

“I told Bradley about Jeannine. No, actually, I showed him
Jeannine,” she said.

She heard Sean’s sharp intake of breath. “Didn’t go so well,
huh?”

“Well, if being branded untrustworthy and a liar is the
basis of a good relationship, then things are just ducky.”

“When you explained...” he started.

“An explanation would require that someone was interested in
listening to what the other person has to say,” she interrupted.

“Want me to drive up and break his knees?”

Mary chuckled and wiped a couple of stray tears. “No,” she
sniffed, “I’ll be okay.”

“He made you cry? That jerk made you cry?” he thundered.
“I’m on my way.”

“No, you made me cry by being a caring big brother,” she
said. “Thank you. It’s kind of been an emotional couple of days.”

“You need to find someone else,” Sean said. “Show him that
he can’t push an O’Reilly around.”

“Well, the difficult part is that I’m still in love with the
idiot.”

Sean sighed. “Yeah, that can be a problem.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get over it,” she said. “Besides, I’ve
got a couple of ghosts to keep me busy.”

“Where would you be if not for your ghosts?” he asked.

“Living in Chicago and bugging you,” she replied quickly.

“Thank goodness for ghosts,” he teased. “That reminds me...”

She could hear him shuffling some paperwork around.

“Why are you at the office so late?” she asked.

“Just finishing some things up,” he said. “I’m taking
tomorrow off. Pop and I are surprising Mom with a new washer and dryer, we have
to get it set up while she’s at work.”

“Hey, it’s not Valentine’s Day. Why such a romantic gift?”
she teased.

He was quiet for a moment. “Well, remember the case I was
working on last week,” he finally said.

“Yeah, where you thought there was forensic evidence in the
peanut oil from the fryer.”

“So, Dad and I thought...”

Mary giggled.

“I haven’t even told you, what
are you
laughing for?” he asked.

“Any sentence that starts with ‘Dad and I thought’ is bound
to be funny,” she replied.

“So, Dad and I thought if we could separate the oil from the
parts, we could get the lab to run tests on them.”

“Don’t they have special machines to do that?”

“Yeah, well, it was broken and with budget cuts and all, it
wasn’t on the schedule to get repaired for six months,” he said. “So, we
figured the spin cycle on Mom’s washer...”

“You put peanut oil and dead body parts in Mom’s washer?”

He sighed, long and loud. “Yeah, she wasn’t too thrilled
about it either.”

           
“So,
are you grounded?” she laughed.

“Yeah, until I’m forty-two,” he responded. “Oh, hey, here’s
what I was looking for. We’ve got this thing, a partnership, with the
University of Chicago.”

“Wow, good school,” she said.

“Yeah, they’ve been doing some special research through the
department, we supply them with raw data and they share the analysis with us,”
he said. “It’s been a really good deal. Anyway, they, the University, also have
a relationship with the University of Edinburgh. Like sister colleges.”

“Okay,” Mary said. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m getting to it,” he replied. “Just
be
patient. So, the University of Edinburgh has this fellow who just happens to be
a Fellow, you know, someone who does special research for the university.”

“Yes, I know what a Fellow does.”

“And this Fellow is coming to the University of Chicago to
work with them on a study of Criminology,” he said.

“Interesting.”

“With an emphasis on Paranormal Phenomena and Criminalistics,”
he stated pointedly.

“Okay, even more interesting.”

“So, the University of Chicago called the Police
Superintendent and he called my boss and my boss called me. And this Fellow is
assigned to my department for six weeks. And I think it would be interesting
for him to work with you for a great deal of that time.”

“So, you want me to babysit some professor from Scotland?”

“Exactly,” Sean said. “I have too many cases and, really,
you deal with more paranormal activity in one day than we have in years. Besides,
I’d have to hire you as a consultant and pay you the going fee.”

Mary smiled. “Now you’re talking! So, when is this kindly
professor from the university supposed to show up?”

“In a couple of weeks,” he said. “So, we can talk about it
later, when it gets closer.
You willing to do it?”

“Yeah, but he’ll probably have to stay at my place because
most of the action is here,” she said. “Should I put together a bedroom on the
first floor, or do you think he can get up and down stairs?”

“I think he can make it up the stairs, Mary,” he said. “But
make sure the railings are nice and secure so he can pull himself up.”

“Okay, you’ve got a deal,” she said. “And thanks.”

“For what?”

“For keeping my mind off Bradley
for a little while.”

“Don’t worry,” Sean replied. “I have a feeling things will
work out fine in the end. Just trust your big brother.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Bradley looked over at the clock and shook his head. It was
nearly four o’clock; he really needed to get a little sleep before he went into
the office. He closed the file and ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t
find anything that pointed to a murderer. He’d gone over everything with a
fine-toothed comb and there were no clues, no eyewitnesses and no suspects. People
just didn’t disappear without someone seeing something.

“
Mary already has some clues that might help us.”

He heard Jeannine’s voice in his mind.
“How the hell does Mary get clues in one afternoon when I searched for eight
damn years?” he growled.

“Jealous?”

He turned, but even before he saw her,
he knew that voice, had dreamt about that voice. “Jeannine?”

She was standing in the middle of the
room, her arms clasped together, watching him. He stood up and took a step
closer. “How can I see you without Mary?”

“Bradley, we’re connected,” she said
sadly. “You could have seen me without Mary long ago if you were willing to
look.”

“I wanted to find you,” he insisted.

“You wanted to find me alive,” she
replied. “You didn’t even want to consider the fact that I might be dead.”

He walked to her. “I didn’t want to
fail you,” he said. “I was a cop; I was supposed to protect you.”

She sighed. “You did all you could do,”
she said. “Did you think I wanted you to throw away your life for me?”

He lifted his hand and tried to touch
her, but it went through her. “I want to touch you,” he whispered. “I want to
hold you again.”

She smiled and held out her hand. “Come
to bed, Bradley,” she said. “You can hold me in your dreams.”

He followed her into his bedroom. Her
body glowed in the darkness of the room. “Lie down, Bradley,” she said. “Lie
down and sleep. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He climbed onto his bed, fully dressed,
and stretched out on top of the blankets. He closed his eyes and drifted to
sleep.

The house was sunny and bright. That
was one of the things they loved about it when they first saw it, the southern
exposure and the big windows. He walked down the hallway, looking for her.
“Jeannine, honey, I’m home,” he called.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she responded. “I
really need your help.”

He rushed down the hall into the
kitchen. Jeannine was standing at the sink, her hands at her hips, looking down
at a turkey in disgust. “Do you realize where you’re supposed to put the
stuffing?” she asked. “Up it’s...”

“Yes, I know,” he interrupted with a
laugh. “Haven’t you ever stuffed a turkey before?”

She glared at him. “No, remember, you
married me for my looks, not my cooking skill,” she said.
“Good
thing, because I’m not putting my hand up there.”

He hugged her. “It’s okay,” he said,
breathing in her familiar scent. “If we want a turkey dinner, I can make it or
we can order in.”

She rested her head against his
shoulder. “I was trying to be domestic,” she admitted. “I didn’t think cooking
would be that hard. It looks easy on T.V.”

He swallowed back the laughter and
stroked her back. “Hon, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said.
“You’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Yes, but what will the baby
think
when we eat Thanksgiving dinner at McDonalds?”

He froze. Taking a step away from her,
he searched her eyes. “The baby?” he said slowly.

She smiled up at him.
“The baby.
Our baby.
The test
results were positive.”

“Jeannine!”

He picked her up, swung her in a circle
and held her in his arms, suspended above the ground. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s
the best news...”

She grinned down at him. “So, I take it
you’re okay with the news.”

He let her slowly slide down his body
and finally covered her mouth with his. He held her and poured all of his love
for her into the kiss. A few minutes later he loosened his hold.

“Well,” she purred. “If we already
weren’t pregnant, I could guarantee that we would be in the next few minutes.”

He grinned at her, anxious to get her
off her feet, when a thought occurred to him. “Are you supposed to...I mean,
can you still have...
”

“I am perfectly healthy, although my
hormones are acting a little funny,” she said. “I seem to have a voracious
appetite for a certain activity.”

She reached up and nipped his ear lobe.
“Quite voracious.”

Bradley scooped her up in his arms.
“Never let it be said that I allowed my pregnant wife to go hungry,” he
murmured, nuzzling her neck. “If nothing else, I’m an excellent provider.”

She laughed and threw her arms around
him. “Take me upstairs and provide already.”

He carried her up the stairs and into
their bedroom. He carefully sat her on the edge of the bed and bent down in
front of her. He slipped one shoe off her foot and massaged it, moving up from
the heel to the ankle and finally to the calf. Then he repeated it with the
other foot.

“Oh, Bradley, that feels so good,” she
moaned.

He leaned over and kissed her mouth
again. “Just getting you ready for the main event,” he promised.

He started to unbutton her blouse when
the door opened behind him.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to
interrupt.”

Bradley turned to see Mary standing at
the bedroom door. “Mary, what are you doing here?” he asked.

Looking around the bedroom, she shook
her head and shrugged, “I haven’t the foggiest notion. But this is your dream,
so you tell me.”

Bradley sat up in his bed. Light was
streaming through the windows, so he knew it must have been after seven
o’clock. He placed his head in his hands. “I’m going out of my mind.”