The Study Group

By Robert L. Bailey

Five young pre-law students are in their senior year in college. One of them turns up missing and the remaining four make a project of the search for him. Their search and interference get the student killed. They remaining four finish school and go on with their careers and family life then find that their search years before comes back to haunt them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 31, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469755243

Robert L. Bailey

Robert L. Bailey is a seasoned storyteller with ten previously published novels. He is now retired from a career of public service and spends time editing manuscripts and working on his next novel. He lives with his lifelong companion, his wife Linda, in rural Southwest Iowa.

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CHAPTER 1

A nearly new, red Chrysler convertible was speeding down the highway west of Bridgewater twenty miles over the legal limit. The man behind the wheel was oblivious to the cold wind blowing around the windshield or the frozen sleet falling onto the leather seats of the car. He was not dressed to be out on such a night with the top down or with the amount of alcohol in his blood stream.

Timothy Harbaugh wasn’t using good sense this late night in October. It was almost midnight, the nice looking car wasn’t his and if the booze wasn’t enough to cause him problems controlling the vehicle, his state of mind was even worse. Timothy Harbaugh was pissed. He was more than pissed, he was furious. He was on his way back to the city after delivering the teasing bitch to her safe little nest out in the country.

His fuzzy head cleared for a minute as he thought about the girl. Son of a bitch she would have been a nice piece of ass he thought. She had some body! She looked like one of those professional football team cheerleaders with the skimpy costumes. When he first saw her in the bar he nearly went off in his pants. He grabbed his crotch and squeezed, remembering how she looked.

He was feeling no pain, with three boilermakers under his belt, when she crawled up on the stool next to him at the bar. She called him by name and asked if he would by a girl a drink. He turned to check her out and couldn’t believe his good luck. He bought her a drink and then another and soon lost count. It was past eleven when she asked him to drive her home. They both had trouble walking as they came out of the bar. She commented on how nice his car was as he helped her with the passenger door. He climbed in behind the wheel and put the top down. She told him he was crazy since it was raining. They hadn’t driven two blocks and the drizzle turned to frozen sleet. He asked where she lived and was surprised to learn it was several miles out in the country. She directed him west on Highway 20 and he missed the driveway leading to her parent’s farm. He backed up, turned in the drive and parked in front of the house. He was all over her as soon as he shut off the engine and the lights. She fought him off and told him he wasn’t getting any in the car with the top down and ice falling all over them. She pissed him off when she said he probably couldn’t get it up anyway with all the booze he had in him. She climbed over the passenger door and ran to the house. He turned the wrong way when he reached the highway and after several miles realized he was driving away from the city. He braked hard, the car sliding around on the asphalt, and then shoved the accelerator to the floor as he headed back east towards Bridgewater.

He suddenly hit the brakes when he saw the street sign announcing Nebraska Avenue. The Chrysler slid sideways, the tires screaming as they left a path of black rubber on the highway. The car was headed north when it finally stopped moving. Hell, I know where I am now, he thought as he shoved down on the accelerator, the back tires screaming as he guided the car north on the street. He was going too fast to make the turn onto Maple Street, the turn he needed to get back into the heart of the city. He blew through the stop sign and lost control on the far side of the cross street, the right front fender striking a mailbox which fell under the back tire, blowing it loose from the rim. He was in control enough to realize he had a flat and pulled over by the curb, stopping just south of a driveway. He opened the door and staggered around to the back of the car, leaned down to look at the tire, then tried to kick it, missed it completely and fell flat on his ass. The back of his head struck the ground and he was stunned for a moment. The car was still running, the headlights still on, the wind driven sleet blowing across in front of the shafts of light.

Timothy opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Christ it’s cold, he thought. The sleet was coming down heavy now, accumulating like a white blanket on the street around him. He made it to his feet then suddenly felt a strong wave of nausea. He reached out, holding onto the back fender as he bent over and heaved his guts up. When nothing more would come up he stood leaning on the car, feeling very sick.

He was startled by a loud, sharp noise. It sobered him for a moment, and then he heard two more loud reports that he thought were gunshots. They came from the house he was facing. A large brick one story structure. A dark colored car was in the circular driveway by the front door. He could see the car’s engine was running by the exhaust blowing around the vehicle. The front door opened, someone came out, went to the car and climbed in, and then the car started down the driveway to the street. As it passed in front of the headlights of the Chrysler, Timothy saw it was a dark blue Lincoln with two men in the front seat. Both men looked toward the convertible as they turned left onto the street and slowly drove by him. The car stopped at the stop sign south of him at the Maple Street intersection and just sat there. Timothy was almost sober. Alarm bells were going off in his head. He had a bad feeling that he had just witnessed something he shouldn’t have. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. Oh shit, what will I do if they come back? As if they heard his thoughts, the car started to back up. Timothy broke loose from his fear frozen state and started running. He headed east across the front lawn of the brick house and ran as fast as he could. He nearly fell twice, his shoes sliding on the sleet-covered grass. He ran past the house and through the back yard of the house behind it. He kept running past that house and then the next house. When he found his path blocked by a fence, he turned and ran where the way was clear.

He suddenly came out onto a cul-de-sac and stopped by a street lamp to catch his breath. His heart jumped up into his throat when he saw the Lincoln coming at him down the street. He turned and ran across the lawn of the nearest house and kept running away from the men in the big car.

*******************

Daylight was just breaking this cold Sunday morning as Officer Randy Westfall drove west on Maple Street in his patrol cruiser. Randy was the newest recruit on the Bridgewater Police Department. He was just thirty days out of the academy and he was coming to the end of another graveyard shift. All new recruits started the 9:00 P.M. to 5:00

A.M. shift and they started on the street in a patrol car. Randy didn’t mind, now that he was on his own. He had been on his own for two nights now. He spent the first four weeks in a cruiser riding along with a veteran officer who was supposed to teach him the job, but he had been bored stiff. The veteran he drew to teach him about the streets was lazy and worked hard to keep from working.

He slowed the cruiser as he came up to the intersection of Nebraska Avenue and turned right. Hello, what’s this, he thought as he spotted the Chrysler convertible by the curb. He parked behind the vehicle and stepped out. The car was running, the lights were on and the top was down. It had stopped sleeting before daylight and the ground was covered with an inch of the white frozen ice. The inside of the convertible was also covered with a coat of ice.

What the hell is this all about? he said out loud. He reached over the door and turned off the lights and then the ignition. He walked around the car, looking for anything on the ground, then returned to his patrol cruiser and picked up his radio microphone. He requested a license plate check for ownership. The dispatcher responded that it would take a few minutes as the computer was down. He left the cruiser and went back to the car to look for a registration slip.

He just touched the door handle when he heard a shrill, blood-curdling scream. He instinctively dropped down into a crouch and his hand went to the butt of his automatic. The scream came from the house. He cautiously walked across the lawn toward the front door. Whoever was screaming has one hell of a set of lungs he thought. He was on the front stoop, his hand reaching for the front door when it flew open. A very large elderly woman came through the doorway and ran over him. She knocked him down on the flagstone porch and fell on top of him, knocking the wind from his lungs. He was pinned to the stone surface and couldn’t move. The woman was looking him in the face and she was still screaming. He tried to roll her off but she was too heavy. He was now yelling as loud as she was, telling her to get off. She finally figured out he was a cop and closed her mouth.

Lady would you please get off, he managed to say.

There are dead bodies in the house, she said.

Let me up and I can go see, he responded.

She finally moved. She just rolled over on her back. Officer Westfall sucked in enough air to fill his lungs and slowly got to his feet. He reached down, took the woman by her arms and pulled her up to a sitting position. He tried to help her to her feet but she pulled her hands free and slapped at his hands, indicating for him to leave her alone and she would get up by herself. She leaned forward, placing her hands on the ground and slowly got her feet under her. When she was standing, he saw all of her and wondered why he wasn’t crushed. She had to weigh over three hundred pounds, he thought.

Arthur and Lillian and some other guy are all dead there in the house, the woman calmly told him.

Who are you lady? Officer Westfall asked her.

Genevieve Fowler, the woman said. "Lillian invited me over for breakfast this morning. I live in the house just behind theirs. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the back door so I tried the knob and it was open.

I went inside and found them. They’re all dead in there."

She started to sob, tears coming to her eyes as she finished.

I’m going inside to check, can you stay right here? he asked.

Genevieve nodded her head and then sobbed louder.

He went through the open front door and into the front room. He wondered if he should have his weapon in his hand but then thought about the fat woman screaming loud enough to scare off a heard of elephants. The first body he found was in a hallway leading to the back of the house.

The guy was built like a defensive tackle, over six feet tall and all muscle. He was on his back, an automatic clutched tightly in his right hand. Officer Westfall went down to his knees and checked for a pulse. The skin was cold. Been dead a while, he thought.

He stepped past the body and continued on down the hallway that opened up into the main bedroom. An elderly, gray haired man was lying on the floor by the bed. A woman about the same age was still in bed under the blankets. Blood from a hole in her forehead had dried on the pillow. He didn’t bother checking either of these bodies as he could tell by their color they were also dead. He turned and went back down the hallway then looked through the rest of the house.

He went back out the front door and found Genevieve right where he left her. He took her by the arm, led her across the lawn to his cruiser and put her in the front seat. He picked up the microphone and called the dispatcher. The woman responded for him to hold his horses, thinking he was calling again about the license plate. He waited until she was finished then requested his watch commander, the coroner and anyone else she thought should respond to the scene of a multiple homicide. He read the address from the front of the house and waited for the woman’s response. She was silent for a few moments, and then just responded with a 10-4.

Officer Westfall sat back, relaxing a little and thought he would stay right here in the car and wait for the cavalry to arrive. He could protect the crime scene from right here in the car.

Lady, would it bother you if I smoked? he asked.

Hell no, if I can mooch one from you. I came away without mine, she said. He handed her a cigarette and lit it for her then lit his own. He sucked in a big drag and felt his nerves relax a little more.

It looked like they were all shot, she said. Who would do such a thing to the Lindbergs?

That their name? Officer Westfall responded.

Yea, Arthur and Lillian Lindberg. Who in blue blazes could they have for enemies that would plug them with a gun? she said.

Officer Westfall was getting the feeling that Genevieve Fowler was a very unique character. He turned to look at her and guessed she must be in her seventies. Her plump face, covered with too much makeup, was surrounded by thick, uncombed, gray hair. She was wearing a flowery print dress that resembled the garb of heavy women living on some South Seas island. It made him think of a tent. Cut it out Westfall, he told himself. You shouldn’t make fun of fat people. You might be one of them some day. He could see her fat feet tucked tightly into bedroom slippers that were covered with sleet the car heater was now melting.

You’re not dressed warm enough to be out this morning, he said.

Oh hell honey, with all this fat I don’t need much to keep warm. Christ I’m hungry. What are we sitting here for? she said.

Waiting for the big shots from my department. Someone will want to take a statement from you, he responded.

Well they better get here pretty damn soon or I’m heading back home to fix some breakfast. What’s your name honey?

Randy Westfall.

You been a cop long?

Not long. I’m new on the department. Are you going to be okay?

What me? Oh sure, my grieving period is over. I thought Art and Lil were good neighbors but it wasn’t like they were family.

How long have they lived here?

Built the place back in ’81, a year before me and my Elroy moved in next door. Had to be ’81 cause Elroy died in ’82, she said.

Elroy was your husband?

Yea.

I’m sorry, Officer Westfall said.

Oh shit, don’t be sorry about Elroy. He lived a long life and enjoyed every damn minute of it. Hell, we were in bed going at it when his old ticker stopped. Couldn’t take all the excitement any more I guess. Course I was a lot thinner then, she said.

Officer Westfall was saved from answering her last statement by the sound of sirens coming down Maple Street.

Well it’s about time, Genevieve said as she grabbed for the door latch.

CHAPTER 2

Bridgewater, Nebraska is home to Nebraska State University. For eighty years it was Brown University, founded by Elias Brown who made a fortune in coal in England before he immigrated to the new upcoming America. In the past ten years this school, along with the state teachers college at Kearney, were folded into the University of Nebraska system with the main campus in Lincoln. It was never common knowledge whether these smaller schools were just absorbed by the university or whether money changed hands. In any case, the college in Bridgewater was now officially the University of Nebraska at Bridgewater. Unofficially the students thought of it as Nebraska State. The old time professors still called it Brown University.

The university occupies a large portion of this city of 46,000 plus inhabitants and life in the community revolves around the school. The main street running east and west through Bridgewater is Maple Street. The street cuts through the center of the campus and at the east boundary the several business establishments begin, lining both sides of the thoroughfare.

At the corner of Elmwood Drive and Maple Street sits a small building which at one time housed a thriving grocery business. A popular tavern now occupies the site, where students spend a lot of their free time chugging down beer or trying to get laid. The place is owned and operated by a randy old bastard by the name of Oscar Comstock. Oscar is just fifty-six but looks like he’s eighty. His life of booze and drugs have aged him but he likes to tell the students he has been burned out by all the women he has known over the years. Oscar doesn’t have much imagination as he named the place Oscar’s Tavern.

The front half of the second floor of the building has been decorated similar to a family room found in many homes in the city. It is divided up into a small kitchen, a bathroom and the family room which is furnished with three large comfortable couches, a large library table and a dozen chairs, a large screen television set, a computer center with three complete sets of monitors, processors and printers, each hooked to the net and one wall containing book shelves from the floor to the ceiling with a well stocked reference library. Over the years, different groups of students have gathered in this room to study together. The room is so popular it has to be booked by graduation for use the next fall.

A diverse group of students has the place rented each Monday from seven in the evening until midnight. Oscar has a rule that the place is closed from midnight until seven in the morning so it doesn’t turn into a flop house for those who don’t want to pay the rent on dorm rooms or apartments. Occupants of the many frat houses didn’t have to stoop to use such pedestrian places; after all, they have their own study quarters.

This Monday night study group consisted of three men and two women. It would occasionally grow to as many as a dozen when the regular members invited friends along but they found such a large group got very little real studying done and those Monday nights turned into parties. Students couldn’t stay all night but they certainly found a way to lie down when they wanted to.

Patrick McQueen was the first to arrive a little before seven on this Monday night the 4th of December. He parked his Jeep as close to the curb as the windrow of snow piled at the edge of the sidewalk would allow. It was cold outside, much too cold for this early in winter. Pat went into the building through the front door and waived at Oscar behind the bar as he walked through the tavern to the stairs in the back and climbed to the study room above. He turned on the lights and pulled off his stocking cap and heavy jacket, throwing them on the couch, then walked to the refrigerator and took out a can of Coors. He pulled off his snow boots and settled down on the couch by the front window. He could see out onto the street and across where the George Norris building rose three stories from the snow covered grounds. It had been snowing all day and the city snowplows hadn’t kept up cleaning the streets. A truck came down the street below him, snow flying from the plow in front, the yellow flashing strobe lights reflecting off the windows. He heard the others coming up the stairs then the door opened. He turned to see who was arriving. Janine was first, followed by Peggy with Frankie bringing up the rear. Pat lifted a hand in greeting, as Frankie went to get beer. The girls pulled off their coats and spread out on the couches.

Any word on Timmy? Pat asked them.

Nothing new, Peggy responded.

You guys never listen to me. I told you that Timmy got some pretty coed knocked up and took off to duck his responsibilities, Frankie said as he passed beer around to the girls.

Oh horse shit, Peggy responded. You’re so full of it I’m surprised it isn’t running out your ears.

She’s right Frankie. You’re confusing your fantasies of getting some poor unsuspecting nice girl in bed without her panties to the life you and Timmy live in the real world, Janine said.

Speaking of panties girls, don’t get yours in a bunch. I just meant there has to be a good, rational explanation why Timothy Harbaugh has gone missing. Do any of you even know where he’s from? Frankie responded.

The girls took a pull on their beer and looked at each other but neither responded. Pat looked at all three and knew Frankie had made a point.

"Frankie has landed upon a good subject which I think we should start with tonight. Let’s see now, classes here started on September 5th. Everyone in this group started at this university four years ago but Timmy who transferred here in his third year. We are all pursuing a law degree and have been taking courses to prepare us for a lucrative life collecting attorney’s fees. We evolved into this study group in this our final year and from the beginning decided to be very objective in our work. We thought that if we approached everything in an organized manner, governed by facts and research, it would help us become good attorneys. We’ve met up here almost every Monday night for the past two months and it is now the first Monday in December and we don’t really know much about each other. Let’s just find out who we are.

Let’s start with our missing study partner, Timothy Harbaugh. I can contribute a little about him. He’s a native of Bridgewater, that is he was born here. He moved around a lot since his father was a career Marine Corps officer. His parents are divorced, his father retired about the time he transferred to the university and I believe the father lives in Bridgewater. Timmy must be twenty-two; he drinks too much and is a little rude to women. That’s the extent of what I know of him," Pat said.

Well that’s more than I know about him, Janine said. "I can tell you he doesn’t have a clue about women. He doesn’t know how to talk to them, he doesn’t know how to approach them for a date and he has pissed off a lot of women with his crude remarks. I suppose no one ever taught him how to interact with the fairer sex.

I can’t contribute much more than Janine, Peggy said. About all the personal conversation I had with him was when he hit on me and I shut him off. You’re right about his manners, Janine. He could piss me off in a second.

Well, I can add very little so I’ll just recap what we know about his absence, Frankie said.

The last time I saw him was downstairs in the pub on Saturday night two weeks ago. He left with a blond who was about as blasted as he was. I was just leaving and I watched him put the top of his convertible down. It was colder than hell and the rain was turning to sleet. I yelled at him something about being insane and he just gave me the finger and drove off.

The conversation died and everyone was thinking about what had just been revealed about Timmy.

Well, we all know a little about Timothy Harbaugh but he is not here to tell us more. To continue, I will give you some of my background and then I want each of you to contribute what you know and think of me, Pat said.

I’m from a community called Bellis Harbor, Michigan. It’s a small town located right on Lake Michigan about an hours drive west of Kalamazoo. I’m from Irish descent, as my name would indicate. My mom and dad operate a marina for boats. It’s more like a big dock where the working boats come to buy gas and provisions. Our livelihood always came from the lake. I went to grade school, then high school there and one of my teachers in high school graduated from this university and encouraged me to come down here to school. My family is by no means well off but we always had enough to live okay. I was taught to work for what I needed; I can’t swim and hate the water. My big passion in life is flying. I managed to get my private license and I like to put in as many hours in the air as I can. I like to think of myself as normal and would greatly enjoy going to bed with either of you fine looking ladies, Pat said.

I’ll go next, Janine said. First, a couple responses to what you said. You are weird, Pat. Born and raised on a big lake and hate the water. I see you as a tall, good-looking guy who seems to have all the right equipment and a quiet pleasing personality. A brief word of advice, you can’t get laid if you don’t try. Okay, now about me. I’m from Pierre, South Dakota that is a fair sized city right in the middle of the state. Most people have a picture in their heads of South Dakota being vast and bare with nothing there. Pierre is located right on the Missouri River and there are big dams above and below the city. There are big lakes and a lot of recreation opportunities. Most of the boats are recreational, not like the Mississippi River where locks in the dams allow barge traffic. I guess they do have barge traffic on the Missouri going up as far as Yankton. Well anyhow, I have a mother and father and one younger brother in Pierre. I’m twenty-two and went through school much like Pat did. I always wanted to be a lawyer and I checked out every college and university in the country before picking this one. My dad’s a lawyer back home and makes good money. My ancestral heritage is French and I’m happy to tell you the language has been passed down from the first generation who settled up there. I speak very good French, I’m no longer a virgin, I get just as horny as men do and I want you all to know I enjoy these sessions with you.

I guess I’m next, Frankie said. "My home is a small town in Kansas called Lowe. I think it got its name from the first guy who built a log cabin there. It’s not far from Kansas City and that’s where we always went for