by Terri Reid
“You know, we will always consider you to be our son,” Bill said. “And once you find your daughter, we will be thrilled to spoil her.”
Smiling, Bradley hugged them both. “She couldn’t ask for a better set of grandparents.”
Mike remained silent until Bradley had pulled the cruiser out of the driveway and was headed back towards Freeport. “Those are great people,” he said.
“Yeah, they are,” Bradley agreed.
“So, how are you holding up?” Mike asked.
Staring straight ahead, he tightened his hold on the steering wheel. “I’m holding on,” he said. “I’ve just got to get through these next couple of days and I’ll be good.”
“You’re an idiot,” Mike replied casually.
“What?”
“Is that where Jeannine is going to be buried?” Mike asked, pointing to a large cemetery down the road.
“Yeah, it is,” Bradley said.
“Pull in there.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask questions, just do it,” Mike said.
Bradley glowered at Mike, but did as he requested. “What, is there a ghost in here we need to help?” he asked, pulling the cruiser to the side of a lane and putting it in park.
“Come on, let’s take a walk,” Mike said.
“A walk? It’s freezing out there.”
“Yeah, a walk,” he said, slipping through the car door.
A moment later Bradley joined him and they walked across the cemetery until they reached a small stone bench.
“Sit down on the bench and talk to me,” Mike said.
“What the hell?”
“This is one of the only places where a grown man can be seen talking to himself and people won’t think he’s nuts,” Mike explained. “So, talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About Jeannine. Tell me how you met her. Tell me about your first date. Tell me about the day you found out she was pregnant.”
Bradley sat down on the bench and stared at Mike. “Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“Tell me,” Mike insisted.
Bradley took a deep breath. “Okay, I first met Jeannine when we were both in high school,” he began. “She was...she was...oh, God...she’s gone. I’m never going to see her again.”
He bent over and placed his head in his hands as the sorrow washed over him. Tears he had been holding back for eight years broke free and poured from his eyes. His body was wracked in shudders of emotion and he was helpless to stop it. He pictured her on their first date, on their wedding day and when she announced she was pregnant. All their plans, all of their happiness, everything was gone and she was never coming back.
After a while, the shuddering eased and he took deep gulping breaths of air.
“Feeling better?” Mike asked.
Wiping his eyes and nose with a handkerchief, he looked up at Mike. “Why?”
“Because you’ve been strong for a long time and you needed to grieve.”
“I had to be strong,” he whispered, “I didn’t want to let my feelings out.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Mike agreed. “You had to be strong for Jeannine, for her parents and for your daughter. You had to be strong until you found her.”
Bradley nodded his head deliberately. “I still can’t believe she’s gone,” he said. “My whole life had been centered on finding her and now...”
“And now you have to figure out who you are without her,” he said.
“How the hell do you know this stuff? You were a fireman.”
Mike shrugged. “I had a youth minister who talked to me about this stuff after my friend died,” he said. “He helped me a lot. Then when I was in college, I thought about getting a degree in psychology, so I took classes. But, really, down deep inside, I was a fireman.”
“So, was it worth it?” Bradley asked.
“Sure it paid off; you can really pick up chicks when you know this stuff.”
Bradley laughed and it felt good. “Thanks Mike.”
“Hey, no problem,” he replied. “Now let’s get back home to Mary.”
“Yeah, I wonder what she’s been up to all day.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you sure we aren’t going to be arrested for this?” Ian asked as he and Mary cut across the wide lawn of the high school and headed towards the door.
“No, of course not,” she replied quietly, “Especially if we don’t get caught.”
“Oh, well, then, I’m feeling much better about the situation,” he said.
She stopped for a moment and turned to him. “If someone questions us, just tell them you’re from another country and didn’t realize you couldn’t go into a public building in the evening.”
“Mary, I’m from Scotland, we can read English there,” he said. “No one will believe me.”
She shrugged. “Okay, well I guess our only option is to not get caught.”
They pulled open the heavy door and quickly scanned the hallway. There was not a soul in sight. “Come on,” she said. “The staircase is over here.”
They hurried down the hallway and through the double doorway that opened to the stairs. Only the emergency lights glowed in the stairwell, casting shadows all around them.
“It’s pretty creepy in here,” Ian whispered.
Turning to him, Mary rolled her eyes. “What are you afraid of? Ghosts?”
He chuckled softly. “Good point.”
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and peeked out through the doorway into the hall. They could hear voices coming from a well-lit room at one end. “We go this way,” Mary whispered in a bad Vincent Price imitation, motioning in the opposite direction, “Towards the dark end of the hall.”
“Funny, Mary,” Ian whispered back, “Very funny.”
Staying close to the lockers that lined the wall, they were able to stay in the shadows as they made their way to the Chemistry lab. They approached the door and Ian stopped and slapped his forehead. “It’s going to be locked,” he whispered. “The school wouldn’t allow the equipment to be out and about for anyone to take.”
Mary shook her head. “Andy said the ghost unlocks the door because he doesn’t want anyone to get caught in there again,” she whispered. “Come on.”
Sure enough, when Mary turned the knob, the door opened and they let themselves into the large darkened classroom. The window shades were all pulled down and only a few beams of illumination from the street light made their way in. Large dark lab tables flanked the perimeter of the room in two separate rows. Stainless steel shelving held beakers and Bunsen burners. A wall sized large periodic table glimmered in the dark.
The door made a quiet snap when Mary shut it and Ian flinched. Chuckling, Mary came up beside him. “Jumpy professor?”
Her laughter stopped when she heard another voice, a deeper voice, join hers in amusement. “It’s always the muscular types who are the real wimps.”
“Would you like to put your money where your mouth is?” Ian asked, clearly offended.
Coach Thorne moved away from the back of the room, so the shadows only covered the top half of his body. “You can hear me?” he asked, astonished.
“Aye, and you could do with a lesson on manners,” Ian grumbled.
“But...you can hear me,” he said, wonder filling his voice.
Mary nodded. “Yes, and we can see you too, Coach Thorne.”
“You know me? You know my name?”
“A friend of ours, Rosie Meriwether, sent us to you,” Mary explained. “She told us you were a hero.”
“Either a hero or an idiot,” he said. “I guess the jury’s still out.”
“Aye, it is at that, Coach,” Ian added, his arms folded over his chest.
The coach laughed. “Please, call me Charlie. And I admit I deserve that,” he said. “I need to apologize. I was only making fun of you because I didn’t think you could see me.”
Ian’s mouth grew into a sma
ll smile. “Well, I suppose I can’t take offense at that,” he said. “I would have probably done the same.”
“I think I saw you at the hospital,” Mary said, “Do you follow Louise around?”
He nodded. “I’ve watched her grow up, she’s quite an amazing woman, don’t you think?”
Mary nodded. “Yes, I agree. Do you remember the fire?”
Charlie stepped forward and Mary gasped. The skin on the right side of his face was melted and hanging off his skull. Where hair remained on the left side of his skull, it stood up in charred patches of black. One of his eyes was melted shut and the other lay in his eye socket, devoid of an eyelid or eyebrow. “Uh, yes, you could say I remember it well.”
“Wow. The heat must have been intense,” Ian said, moving toward the coach.
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, the explosion was intense,” he said. “I’m sure the air was superheated because I don’t remember anything until I woke up a ghost.”
“What happened?” Mary asked.
“Wish I knew,” he said. “We were mixing ammonium nitrate with water to create an endothermic reaction. Nothing like this should have happened.”
“So you weren’t using heat?” Ian asked.
“No, that’s way too dangerous,” Charlie said. “This should have been a safe experiment.”
“Wait, why would you worry about heat?” Mary asked.
“Heating ammonium nitrate can cause a violent explosion,” Ian said. “It can also react with certain kinds of combustible materials because it’s a powerful oxidant.”
Mary looked at Ian in disbelief.
“Ah, well, I was fairly good in Organic Chemistry,” he confessed.
“Impressive,” she replied and then turned to Charlie. “So, could this have just been an accident?”
“You know, I’ve been asking myself that too,” he said. “I poured the ammonium nitrate into those test tubes myself. I kept all of the chemicals under lock and key. I just can’t see how this could happen.”
“Well, there’s a reason you’re still sticking around,” Ian said. “And we’d like to help you figure that out.”
“I know this is going to sound like a bad movie,” Mary said. “But these are some of the things you need to consider. Did anyone have a grudge against you? Was there anyone who wanted you to look bad? It doesn’t have to be murder, sometimes pranks can get out of control.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” Charlie said. “I don’t want to implicate anyone and ruin their life. They’re only kids.”
Mary smiled sadly. “Charlie, they’re older than you are,” she explained. “The explosion happened over forty years ago.”
“Forty years?” he exclaimed. “I’ve been hanging around for forty years?”
“Aye,” Ian said. “The trail’s pretty cold, so we’re going to need anything and everything you can remember.”
They heard a noise in the hallway. “Ah, Speech Team is over,” Mary said. “Charlie, we’ve got to go, but we’ll be back to ask you some more questions.”
Charlie shrugged. “I’ll be here.”
They slipped out the door and quietly made their way to the end of the hall. They could hear the students tease Mr. Connors, the Speech Team coach, and heard his bantering with them. Finally, the outside door closed and the high school was still.
“Ready?” Mary asked.
Ian nodded. “More than ready,” he said. “High school scared me to death.”
Chapter Twenty
It was dark when Bradley pulled up in front of Mary’s house. He and Mike made their way up to her front door and Bradley knocked while Mike stuck his head through the door to see if anyone was home.
“Rosie and Stanley are there,” he said, pulling his head back. “And the kids are home, but there’s no sign of Mary or Ian.”
“Hmmm, well at least we know that she and Ian aren’t going to be looking into anything dangerous,” Bradley said.
Mike chuckled. “Yeah, right.”
Bradley shot him a look of concern and was about to say something when the door opened. Rosie smiled up at Bradley. “Well, hello, Bradley,” she said, “How nice to see you.”
“Hello, Rosie, it’s good to see you too,” he replied. “Is Mary home?”
“Chief Alden,” Andy cried, racing across the room. “Mary and Ian are breaking into the high school to catch a ghost.”
“Oh, dear,” Rosie sighed, biting her lower lip.
“Breaking in? As in breaking and entering?” Bradley asked Rosie.
“Well, not really breaking in,” she said. “The door is unlocked, so they are merely entering, that’s all. There’s not a law against entering, is there?”
Bradley rolled his eyes. “Well, at least she has Ian with her.”
“Oh, like that’s going to help?” Mike teased.
Bradley felt a tug on his coat and looked down to find Maggie at his side. He smiled at her. “Hello Maggie,” he said, running his hand over her soft hair. “What can I do for you?”
“I miss Ian,” she said. “Is he coming home soon?”
Bradley nodded. “He’d better be.”
“Just got a call from Mary, she and Ian are on their way home,” Stanley called from the kitchen.
“Stanley, don’t come out here,” Rosie yelled.
“What?” he asked.
He walked into the living room wearing a big white apron covered with flour. As a matter of fact, Bradley realized, he was totally covered in flour. Glancing around the room, Bradley saw the rest of the group also seemed to be wearing flour in the most unusual places. Maggie had flour on her nose and forehead. Andy’s hair and shirt were coated. Rosie had a bit of flour on her cheek and on the back of her shirt, in the shape of handprints.
“What happened to you?” Bradley asked.
“Whoever puts their flour canister on a top shelf with the lid loose is asking for a mess, that’s all I have to say,” Stanley grumbled.
“The flour spilled all over Stanley,” Maggie said. “He looks like a snowman.”
“Yeah, it was so cool,” Andy added. “There’s flour everywhere in there. Me and Maggie got to have a food fight with Stanley. At least until Rosie told Stanley to stop.”
“Yeah, then he kissed her and got flour on her cheek and her back,” Maggie giggled.
“Sounds like a good time,” he laughed.
“Well, it weren’t a good time,” Stanley said, a blush appearing on his wrinkled cheeks. “And now, some of us have to go to the store for more flour.”
“While you’re gone, the rest of us will sweep up your mess,” Rosie said. “And don’t forget milk. Mary’s almost out.”
“I won’t forget,” he said, letting himself out the door.
Bradley squatted down next to Maggie and brushed the flour off her nose and forehead. “A food fight, really?” he asked.
She grinned at him. “It was so fun,” she said, her eyes widening. “My mom would never let us do something like that.”
“Your mom is very smart,” Bradley replied.
Andy came up next to him, a worried line furrowing his forehead. “Stanley said it was okay. Honest.”
Bradley reached over and ruffled the boy’s hair, a puff of flour escaping into the air. “Well, then, it must have been okay, because Stanley knows what he’s doing,” he said. “But we might want to clean it up before Mary and Ian get home.”
Bradley shrugged off his coat and hung it in the closet. He rolled up the sleeves to his uniform shirt, exposing muscular forearms with a light dusting of dark hair. He smiled to the children. “Come on; let’s clean the kitchen so Rosie can keep cooking.”
“Oh, no, Bradley,” Rosie fluttered. “I can’t let you clean up this mess. You’ve worked all day. You probably haven’t eaten dinner. You need too...”
Bradley looked over his shoulder at her, while he walked into the kitchen. “I’m fine, Rosie, real...ahhhhhh!”
Slipping on the slick floury kitchen floor, Bradley
windmilled his arms as his feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back in a huge puff of white powder. He groaned softly.
“Bradley, are you okay?” Rosie gasped.
He nodded, raising his head and looking over at her. “Yeah. But you stay where you are, I don’t want you to slip.”
She giggled softly. “Oh, no, I don’t want to end up on my backside either.”
Bradley turned the other way to see both Maggie and Andy staring at him, their eyes wide and their faces worried. “If either of you laughs at me, you’re in trouble,” he said with a grin.
Andy slapped both hands over his mouth, but it was too late. A chortle escaped. Bradley rolled over and grabbed Andy around the waist, carefully wrestling him to the floor. “Now, you’re in for it,” he threatened, scooping up a handful of flour and stuffing it down Andy’s shirt.
“This is war,” Andy yelled, tossing fistfuls of flour into the air in the general direction of Bradley’s head.
“Yeah, war,” Maggie shouted, jumping on top of both of them.
Mary hurried up the front porch stairs. “I can’t believe it’s so late,” she said, punching the security code into the lock. “I hope Bradley hasn’t been here for long.”
“Don’t worry,” Ian said. “Rosie’s probably got the kids in bed, the cinnamon rolls made and the kitchen in perfect order.”
“Yeah,” Mary agreed, her hand on the door knob. “And Bradley’s probably relaxing with his feet up.”
Mary stepped into the house and stared at the confusion in the kitchen. “Well,” she said to Ian. “I was right about one thing; Bradley does have his feet up.”
Bradley was lying on his back in the middle of the kitchen floor, his legs wrapped around Andy who was liberally sprinkling him with a dust pan filled with flour. Maggie appeared from the other side of the kitchen, poured a wooden spoon filled with flour on both of them, and danced back, keeping a step or two away from Bradley’s outstretched arms.
“Get back here, you traitor,” Bradley called. “You promised you would be on my side.”
“I’m on my own side,” Maggie giggled.
Mary closed the door with a slight thump and the room was immediately quiet.
