Natural Reaction (23 page)

“A might better than yours, I’d gather,” he replied.

Mary leaned back against Bradley and giggled. “They are so cute together,” she laughed.

Bradley turned her towards him, held her loosely in his arms and lowered his forehead to hers. “My heart stopped beating when I heard that second shot,” he said, “I thought…”

She lifted her hands and cradled his face. “The same thing I thought when I saw him behind you and heard the first shot.”

He nodded. “Which was?” he encouraged.

“Crap, he’ll do anything to get out of a date.”

He chuckled softly, pulled her closer and kissed her on the side of her neck. “You’re still planning on wearing that little black dress, right?” he whispered in her ear, sending a quiver of excitement through her.

“
Ummm
, hmmm,” she breathed slowly as he continued to place small kisses against the side of her neck. “And sexy black heels with black silk stockings.”

He paused mid-kiss. “They wouldn’t have a seam up the back of them, would they?”

She grinned.
“All the way up the back of them.”

He drew back and looked at her face, her grin wide and her eyes sparkling. “There is no way in hell I’m missing this date,” he said, and pulled her close for a bone melting kiss.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Walter Gormley shouted, spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth. “I just got off the phone with the police. You went into one of my schools and shot at someone. Do you realize what you could have done?”

“Yes, I could have gotten rid of a problem that could ruin all of our lives,” Ephraim Brandlocker said. “And don’t tell me what to do, Gormley. I put you in that position and I can just as easily take you out.”

This time the bar was closed and the shades were drawn, so no one walking past the tavern would be able to tell anyone was inside.

“It was a prank, right?” Walter asked, trying to read Ephraim’s face. “You told me it would just be a prank.
Something to make my dad look better and put a little egg on Thorne’s face.”

Ephraim nodded. “That’s what I told you all right.”

“So, what’s the big deal? It was a stupid prank and it went wrong, that’s all. We were teenagers, 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.”

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 in 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.”

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.