The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,113

than I thought.

I thought about calling Helen and explaining the situation to her, but thought better of it since I was still a wanted man. I took the batteries out of my cell phone and got comfortable in Walter’s RV, and fell fast asleep.

The next full day I rested, relaxed, and did absolutely nothing except shower, shave, read, and eat; I read and ate in the restaurant. I tried to keep away from the rest of the patrons, and ate in a booth in the shadows and kept a newspaper in my face. The papers had it all wrong, still, but hopefully with time any misunderstandings would be straightened out. Maybe they’d print a retraction, clear our names, and take our pictures off the front page. There we were, four of us in separate photographs, all lined up in a row… Cornelius Lovely, Susan Lovely, Dr. Burke, and me. Walter had somehow escaped the line-up; maybe it was because he was smarter than all of us. They used my driver’s license picture; couldn’t they have used the portrait I had on the wall at work? At least I appeared to be five years younger.

That night I sat alone again in the grill, and the patrons were playing the television above the bar, when a live news report broke, saying that there had been no murder of Cornelius Lovely, that the missing Lovely inheritance funds had been found, and that Dr. Burke had been the bombing victim of a disgruntled hospital patient.

Pictures of Dr. Burke were shown, with him arriving at his own home, meeting Helen on the front porch. There were multiple videos, with a the reporter explaining that Dr. Burke had been near his car when it exploded, and he’d been walking around with amnesia for a few weeks, until he saw himself on television and realized who he was. Evidently a hospital patient, angry with his bill, had rigged an IED and placed it under a car in the doctor’s parking lot, taking care to pick the most expensive looking one. The mystery bomber was still at large, and the news had labeled him as ”the Doctor Bomber,” and warned other hospital workers to walk or take the bus or bicycles to work.

Photographs were shown of Dr. Burke kissing Helen and then the children coming to the porch to meet their father, and Dr. Burke was videoed kissing and hugging all the children. It looked as though the good doctor was off to a new beginning with his family.

The news then cut to the home of Susan Lovely, who was shown sitting on her couch in a low-cut dress, eating bon-bons and drinking something that Julio was bringing her. In the interview she said, “I’m glad that Frank … Dr. Burke has been cleared of all wrongdoing. I knew he was innocent all along, and I’m also glad that my grandfather died of natural causes and that my inheritance has been restored to its rightful place. Thank you, Julio,” she said as she took a drink off the platter he was holding.

Gregory Jouglard appeared on screen, saying, “We now take you live to the administrative offices of the Lovely Chocolate Company, where KDBC news anchor Darla Bell is speaking with some of the administrative staff.”

The television screen flickered, then showed Darla Bell standing in a room surrounded by official-looking staff members of the Lovely Chocolate business. “Hello, this is Darla Bell with KDBC news at the public relations office of the Lovely Chocolate Company, where company technician Walter Dale will explain the missing funds mystery. Mr. Dale?”

The men at the bar all looked up at the same time when Walter’s name was mentioned, and a few remarked, “Walter! Hey, that’s Dale!” Kim also looked up. Men started walking towards the bar, getting closer to the television, so Kim turned up the volume for them, since a few of them were hard-of-hearing.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Bell. What happened at the Lovely Chocolate Company was a technical, financial mix-up, causing the inherited funds of Miss Lovely to suddenly vanish, or to disappear from her account. What in actuality happened was that, since Cornelius Lovely’s bank accounts are so closely connected to the funds of the Lovely Chocolate Company, when it came time to switch the funds from one account to another, it automatically downloaded the funds from Mr. Lovely’s account into the research and development funds here at the Lovely Chocolate Company. Our computer bookkeeper had been on a leave