The Lovely Chocolate Mob (14 page)

Mae Ling looked unconvinced. “Old flame not drain.”

The jukebox blared at Estella’s, Kim brought us a round of drinks, and we were comfortable in a now-familiar setting. The biker crowd was over at the bar near the television, older gentlemen with lots of leather and bandanas and flags who showed each other the latest in technology, e-readers, i-phones, who compared and contrasted the latest models to the most available ones. They were fun to watch; there were bikers and there were cowboys; there were blacks, Latinos, and white men gathered, but nobody seemed to mind if others were a different sort; they had all grown up; there was a lot of laughter. Walter knew most of them, and they knew him as well. He walked among them as though he were a biker himself.

Walter began his report by saying, “I found the boyfriend of Mindy Burke, the fellow who supplied her with the photograph. His name is Myles Quine, a college student who is stuck in this area while she goes off to the high-dollar school during the fall and spring. I think they intend to marry, as soon as he can land a good job. Man, she’ll have to adjust to a new kind of lifestyle after what she’s been brought up with! I wonder if her old man even knows she’s dating a blue-collar security guard?”

He held up a copy of the same 8” X 10” black and white that Helen shared with me weeks ago.

“Helen showed me that,” I said. “It’s pretty good evidence that something was going on between Franklin and Miss Lovely.”

“Yes,” said Walter, “but did you know Franklin Burke has been Cornelius Lovely’s personal on-call physician for years? This photograph was taken just hours after Old Man Lovely died. The whole family and personal staff had gathered at the hospital, and were all there with the Old Man, along with Dr. Burke. He’s been a family friend as well.”

I thought for a moment. “You’re saying there’s the possibility that this kiss--not on the lips but on the cheek--is an emotional kiss of comfort to a family member, and not a romantic involvement kiss?”

“It may be that way, boss. Mind if I call you boss? Heh-heh! Since you’re paying me, I figure you deserve that.”

I was still thinking on this, looking at the photo. Was it possible that we had all been wrong about Franklin Burke, that we all suspected him of an affair because of this one photograph, by a machine that was situated to capture him in the parking lot? Was it possible that Helen and Mindy had gone through all this emotional turmoil for nothing? But somehow Mindy didn’t seem to think that her father was innocent. I wondered if she had seen the whole parking lot video.

“Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the girl being kissed is be-a-u-tiful bikini model, heh-heh!” chuckled Walter, who was laughing in his drink. It seemed that he also believed Franklin Burke to be guilty.

“What if we’ve been wrong here, Walter?” I asked. “Or to clarify, if Helen, Mindy, and I have been wrong? What if Franklin Burke really is innocent? We’ve done all this research to hang an innocent man.”

“I’m not so sure he’s innocent,” offered Walter. “Look at his past record. We both knew him in college. He was a college hotshot back then, a pretty boy; all the girls loved him and wanted to be around him. Remember how they lit up whenever he walked into a room? Rich, popular, frat boy, live wire, never worked while in college, but being a pre-med type, he should have been deep into his books, anyhow. How pretty boy became a doctor is beyond me. Anyway, when he arrived at college, he made a beeline straight for your girl, the cutest girl on campus. Now check him out years later. I have my doubts he’s changed. He’s doing the same exact thing.”

“Exactly what is that?” I asked.

“Ah, come on Randall!” said Walter. “You’re too trusting in human nature; fortunately for you, I am not cursed with this malady. I think most people are rotten to the core, and he’s rotten! Here’s what I mean: Helen, although probably still a looker, wouldn’t exactly be the same creature she was while at college. Now the chocolate bikini-lady, she’s the real thing! She’s still in her prime, plus she’s filthy rich, and about to be filthy richer!”

“You’re a cynic, my friend,” I remarked.

“And darn proud of it,” replied Walter.

“So now you’re saying that all the parts fit, given the pattern of Franklin’s past, to drop a girlfriend, in this case, his wife, in exchange for a younger and richer girlfriend.”

“Now you’re getting the picture. Although we’ve never seen him drop a girl, it’s a sure bet he did while in high school, before arriving at college. Besides this photo, and our made-up motives, we need more proof. This pic is good, but can be explained away, just as you tried to do.”

“How do we get more proof?” I asked.

“Go straight to the source, Franklin himself.”

A few weeks had passed; Franklin Burke was on the third floor performing his usual rounds at the city hospital, working on his 48
^th
birthday. He was checking charts and talking to patients, and in a bit of a grumpy mood, the nurses had noted. He understood why he was needed at work, even if it was a special day. He was near the nurses’ station when he heard over the hospital loudspeaker, “Dr. Burke, Dr. Franklin Burke, you’re needed in the administration office”. This was unusual and out of the ordinary; the nurses were busy, and since this announcement had nothing to do with them, they paid no attention. He checked his watch, then headed down the hall towards the elevator. Stepping aboard, he punched the button for the first floor, where the administration offices were located.

“Probably something about an unpaid bill; there must be some question about it,” he grumbled to himself. “Can’t imagine what it would be.” The doors quickly shut, the music played, and the elevator descended towards its destination. The light for the first floor never came on, Franklin noted, and the elevator door was a bit slow in opening. He grumbled a little more, but at least he wasn’t in a rush for time.

The elevator opened and standing there to greet him were three men, all dressed in doctor smocks, wearing glasses and bushy eyebrows and plastic noses and mustaches and wigs and silly, pointed party hats, holding balloons which read, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!” He laughed at the ridiculous sight, and suspecting a surprise party, said, “Heeey, what’s this? A greeting committee? What’s going on?”

“We need you to follow us; we’re in a hurry, must diagnose patient, we need you A.S.A.P., chop-chop!” said the first “doctor.” The three men stepped toward Dr. Burke; one blew a party horn in his face and another threw confetti in the air and one put a silly birthday hat on Dr. Burke’s head. Then two of them took him by an arm and led him out of the elevator and into the hall, walking him down toward a room and blowing party horns and saying silly things like, “This patient has the flu; you’re needed for surgery!” “Only you have the knowledge which will save this patient!” and “Dr. Burke, calling Dr. Burke!”

Donald Burke was laughing at all this silliness, playing along with the gag, until they reached the room they were to enter. It was then he began to realize that the layout of the floor was different, and said, “Hey, we’re in the basement!” while stepping into the room. All the balloons had kept him from seeing most of what was around him, but now he had figured his location. In the room were words on bright papers hanging on the wall, reading, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!”

He took a look around the room, most of which was bare, and said, “So where’s the cake?”

That’s when he heard the door shut behind him. A lone chair sat in the middle of the room, and in front of the chair was a blank white wall. On the other side of the room was a high small opening for a pipe, next to the ceiling, which looked a little out of place.

The room suddenly went pitch black, and from the small opening a beam of light emitted to the large white wall in front of the lone chair. A voice came from nowhere, from speakers located in the ceiling, saying “Have a seat, Dr. Burke. This is
your life!”
Music played, and the title, “This Is Your Life,” came up on the wall with such clarity that Dr. Burke thought his fellow doctors were using a DVD projector.

“The administration must be in on this also,” muttered Dr. Burke, who found his way over to the lone chair and sat down. “This looks interesting.”

Then the lettering changed to read “THIS IS YOUR LIFE, FRANKLIN BURKE.” Dr. Burke said, “Oh, now, come on… !” and laughed. Maybe this was some birthday surprise being pulled by his daughters, and if so, where did they hire the three men? They really shouldn’t be spending their babysitting money on such frivolous things.

Photographs were shown in video-style; they faded in and out, moved across the screen, got larger and smaller, with popular music from the era of years past playing along, giving Franklin a feeling of sentimentality. Pictures of his high school days, photos of his wedding, with an unrecognized male voice narrating the happy occasions, one after the other.

“This is Franklin Burke walking with his bride Helen Ceraldi just after promising before God and everybody to be loyal, ‘til death do us part,” with a photograph of himself and Helen happily walking through a hail of rice outside a church on their way to their honeymoon car. Photographs of the car were there. “Only Helen would have access to these pictures,” Franklin thought to himself. “She must have a hand in this.”

“Then over the years the Burke household was blessed with the birth of four children, Mindy, Beth, Lucia, and J.R.,” a montage of each child’s photograph being shown to beautiful music, pictures over the years in which each child was shown smiling and laughing, until finally Franklin Burke himself was smiling and laughing with each photograph. He found that he had relaxed and was really quite enjoying the moment; he had completely forgotten work and at times seemed to be sniffling to himself from the happy memories being shown on the wall screen. “How have they done all this?” he wondered. “It’s really good. Obviously a projector is in the next room, with images being shown through the opening. Where is everybody?”

Then came a montage of photographs with Franklin kissing his wife, from pictures in college, to pictures of wedding preparation dinners, with photos of him kissing his bride at the altar, and then again with pictures from family moments where he was caught kissing his wife over the next few years. This went on and on until one black and white photo filled the screen, when the sound of a needle scratch tearing across an old LP record came on the sound system.

“Franklin kissing his wife? Oh, no, this person is
not
his wife.” The voice over the speakers had suddenly become disguised, tinny, with an electronic quality.

The grainy black and white parking lot photograph was now projected on the wall, plainly showing him kissing Susan Lovely.

“Uh!” was all Franklin Burke could say. “Where did you get that?” he said to the unknown voice.

“Who is she, Franklin Burke? She is most definitely not your wife.”

“What’s going on? Who are you people?” said Franklin, as he looked around the room.

“It doesn’t matter who we are; what matters is that in the next few moments you give us truthful answers,” said the voice.

Dr. Burke stood up and walked over to the door. It wouldn’t open. He looked for the hole where the projector would have been, and then the projector light went off, leaving him in pitch-black darkness.

“Help! Help!” he cried.

“Dr. Burke, don’t bother wasting your energy; you have rounds to attend to. If you want to get back on schedule, we suggest you answer the question quickly and truthfully. No one can hear you. This room is soundproofed, to keep any generators down here from disturbing any patients up there; you know that.”

Franklin felt along the wall. It felt different than sheetrock. He knew that the basement rooms were made of brick and cinder-block, and this brick room apparently had a different lining added to it. He felt for the door, and it also felt different, somehow heavier, thicker. If he got locked in here, it might be down here for a long time before anyone found him. He might starve or dehydrate in the meantime. He felt his way back to the chair.

“That’s a good man, Dr. Burke. Cooperation will speed things along.”

“I won’t tell you.”

“If that’s the case…,” the screen lit up again, but this time to a live black and white video. On screen, a person was holding the camera, or wearing one, since hands could be seen moving on both the left and right side of the screen. Judging from the angle, it looked as though the cameraman were wearing it on his head, maybe in a hat. He held an 8” x 10” copy of the photograph of Dr. Burke kissing a strange woman in his hand, showing it to the camera. He was sitting in a moving vehicle, and when the cameraman looked up, the strangely familiar neighborhood could be seen on screen. Maybe this was one of the “doctors” who had been with him when he got off the elevator. The vehicle turned a corner, and was traveling down the street to Dr. Burke’s home.

He stood up. “What are you doing? That’s near my house!”

“We know, Dr. Burke. But what we need to know is, who is the woman in that picture?”

The man in the live image held the photograph back in front of the camera, so that it lit up the screen again. Dr. Burke’s house was getting closer; the vehicle had stopped and the camera veered to the right, showing a clear shot of the Burke residence, a beautiful old mansion in the rich old section of Lovely.

“Well, Dr. Burke? Will you tell us who she is?”

“It’s nobody’s business.”

“As you can see, we’ve made it our business.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“As you wish, Dr. Burke.”

On the video, the cameraman opened the vehicle door and traveled up the long walk towards the front door, then showed an outstretched arm, wearing white gloves and a large, polka-dotted long sleeve, reaching for the doorbell. Dr. Burke turned his head sideways, wondering who would be wearing clothes like that?

A maid opened the door, looked at the cameraman and said, “Hello!”

“No, Sylvia, don’t let him in!” yelled Franklin.

“She cannot hear you, Dr. Burke. Only we can.”