The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,83

so far apart, where you wouldn’t think the neighbors knew or cared about each other; maybe Dr. Burke had made free house calls? Driving slowly down the street, I could see movement in the distance at the Burkes’ front door, and then saw Helen being escorted out by two policemen. She was crying, and they were holding her arms and shoulders, supporting her on either side while walking out to a squad car. Surely they didn’t suspect her in any wrongdoing? They must have been taking her down the station for questioning, or to the morgue for identification purposes. Traffic was so congested that the police car left before I reached the house. Seeing a few neighbors walking back to their homes, I called over to one of them:

“Excuse me! Can you tell me what happened with the Burkes?”

An older lady stopped, and said, “Oh, it was terrible. There was an explosion; Dr. Burke’s car was blown up over at the hospital, and it's still burning. The fire department is there, and I heard one of the police say it’s a total loss; nobody could have survived it. By the time firemen arrived, the fire in the vehicle was burning out of control; they’ve decided to wait and let it burn itself out.”

I asked, “Do you know where they’re taking Mrs. Burke?”

“No,” she said, “Dr. Burke had told one of his workers that he was going home for the day, and then this happened! Poor Mrs. Burke, they seemed like such nice neighbors. Did you know them?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I went to school with them. Where are their children?” I asked.

“Oh, Mrs. Burke has plenty of siblings in the area; they’re all with their aunts and uncles. I heard they were still in school when this happened, and the police contacted each one through the different school administrations. Most of the neighbors will be here if they come back home.”

“Thank you” was all I could say, and I drove on, still being slowed by traffic and rubberneckers. Dr. Burke may have been a minor celebrity in town, since he’d been seen by many of the sick, was known at the hospital, and had hobnobbed with society’s upper crust. Since there was more traffic appearing behind me, I left, not knowing what to do, where to go. There was nothing I could do here.

I drove downtown to police headquarters and parked in the visitors’ parking lot, and stayed outside for awhile, looking for evidence of Helen doing a perp walk, but didn’t see any signs of the media; usually they’d be tipped off if there were to be an event. I entered the police building and spoke with the desk sergeant. He was an older gentleman, wearing a name tag reading “Sgt. Bechen,” probably past his prime and so took this assignment; he couldn’t tell me much, but did offer me some candies at the desk. I made a little small talk with him, gave him my phone number and asked him to call me if he managed to see Mrs. Burke come in. He must have seen my concern because he turned to a busy-looking policeman, who was hurrying through the lobby area, about Helen Ceraldi-Burke. The hurried officer said they had taken her to the hospital to identify the car, in case someone switched license plates, and maybe to identify the body, but doubtful there’d be much to ID. I thought to myself, “Why couldn’t this wait until later? Why would they do that?”

In the television shows, police always look first to the people closest to the victim, and if that’s the case, this may have been shaping up badly, into a wrongfully accused situation. Maybe they were hoping to get her to talk, to say something that would give them reason to book her.

I thanked Sgt. Bechen and left, deciding I didn’t want the police to drag me into this. All I could think about were those kids, those poor kids. What else could I do? If it came down to it, I suppose I could spill all the beans to the law, tell them the whole story, if indeed Helen was charged with a crime. But then, what about the people I love? The cartel already knew about Miss Planter. They’d know who talked; it wouldn’t be hard for them to backtrack the information to me.

It was getting late and so it was time to drive home; it had been a long and eventful day; I was