Paying a Visit
I open and slam the car door as soon as Mr. Stark stops in Dr. Connors’ driveway, hopping out onto the pavement.
“Peter,” Mr. Stark calls, but I barely listen. All I can see is the doorway in front of me, and the man who I know is behind it. As soon as I reach the door, I knock hard a few times, leaving a dent in the wood.
“Dr. Connors!” I shout. “Hello?”
The door opens, revealing a concerned Dr. Connors. He looks me up and down before saying,
“Is everything all right?”
I ball my hands into fists. This is the man who killed my parents. “You—” I begin, before my gaze lands on his missing arm. “How did you lose your arm?”
He looks down, then back up. “Oh, this? Military service. I was—”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a plane crash?”
“Why, yes. What is all this about? Are you quite sure you’re all right?”
Steps behind me let me know that Mr. Stark has arrived. “Yeah, he’s fine,” Mr. Stark says. “We just have a few questions for you.” Mr. Stark’s voice is cool and angry.
“Did you kill my parents?” I blurt out.
Dr. Connors looks at me for several seconds, blinking with wide eyes. He wipes his forehead with his hand and says,
“Is that what this is about? My goodness.”
“Yeah,” I say, biting down on the word. “Just…why? Why the hell would you do it? They were your friends.”
He sighs. “You’d better come inside. You need the full story.”
------
Moments later, Mr. Stark and I once again sit on Dr. Connors’ couch. No cups of tea in our hands though; I think I might shatter it if I held one. Dr. Connors sits across from us in a chair, looking nervous. Good.
“So what’s this full story?” Mr. Stark asks. I’m glad he’s asking the questions. Frankly I’m too furious to do any talking. This man was my parents’ friend. How could he do that to them? They trusted him. He even remembers the day I was born. How could he?
Dr. Connors gulps and sips his tea. “Well, it started a long time ago, I suppose.”
Mr. Stark holds up a hand. “We’re going to need the quick version, and a couple of good reasons why we shouldn’t call the cops and arrest you right now.”
He nods. “Of course,” he says. “What you need to know first is I didn’t kill them. I’ve never killed anyone, and I certainly never will. And not your parents,” he says, looking at me. “They were the kindest people I ever knew. I would never.”
“Stop lying,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I’m not. I swear. Please, you have to believe me Peter, I didn’t kill your parents.”
“Then who else could it have been?” I shout, rising to my feet. “I remembered what happened that night, you know. I saw my parents talking to my uncle, and they mentioned your name. They said, ‘you know how Connors gets’. What else could they have meant other than that you were trying to kill them?”
Dr. Connors stares up at me for several seconds. The tension in the air is so tight, I want to rip it in half.
Finally he bows his head. Mr. Stark puts a hand on my leg, and I sit back down, still grimacing.
“I know you did it,” I say. “Just…tell me why.”
“I didn’t do it,” Dr. Connors says after a few seconds.
“That’s not what Mr. Osborn says.”
He scoffs. “Oh, that man.”
“Yeah, that man. He’s been helpful to me. He said you were jealous of my parents, that you even tried to replicate their research.”
The man sighs, then rubs a hand over his head. “Yes, I was jealous once upon a time. We’d been friends for awhile, and we’d each done our own research. But your parents always got the results they wanted, rarely had a failed experiment. And when they bred the spiders, it was perfect. They’d gotten everything they desired. And yes, I was jealous. I mean look at me.” He gestures to his missing arm. “Imagine if I could grow back my arm using a lizard’s DNA. I did try to replicate their research. Wouldn’t you, if you were me? But it didn’t work.” He shakes his head. “Even though I tried my best. For awhile, I was…bitter. Angry. But then one night, I had dinner with your parents, and they talked me down. I realized the error in my research, and all that. But I never tried again. Because your parents made me realize that I was doing the research from a place of anger. That’s never how science should be done.” He sips his tea once more. “And from then on we were close friends again.”
Part of me doesn’t want to process what I just heard. Because if what he said is true, then he really didn’t… Could I really be so wrong? All the evidence thus far points to him. But what if I made a mistake somewhere, passed over something I shouldn’t have?
“Peter,” Mr. Stark says, leaning over. “I don’t think he did it.”
Slowly, I nod. “Yeah. You may be right.” I look back over at Dr. Connors. “So you really didn’t do it?”
“No.”
“I just want to check something, though,” Mr. Stark says. “Your alibi. You said you were upstate in a private laboratory that no longer exits. That’s awfully convenient for you.”
He nods. “Yes, that’s true. It was torn down a few years ago.” Suddenly, he straightens and blinks. “I was actually at a conference at the time. Yes, I remember. It was a biology conference in Albany.”
“Wait, Albany?” Mr. Stark pulls out his phone. “I think I know the place. Was it the Johnson Conference Center?”
“Yes,” Dr. Connors says. “You know it?”
“Let me check something…” He trails off, pulling something up on his phone. “The camera records should still exist from back then, and with a little expert hacking…Ah-ha.” An image forms in the air of Dr. Connors at a podium, speaking in front of an audience. “There you are, Dr. Connors, right at the time of the crash.”
A breath leaves my body. “So you didn’t do it.”
“No, I did not.”
“And you didn’t hire anyone to?” I ask. “Sorry, I just have to make sure.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s quite all right, Peter,” he says. “Being thorough is good.”
I give a wry smile. “Sorry for barging in, then. I’m…really sorry about all this.”
He smiles back. “I don’t mind at all. I’m just glad you’re pursuing this. For years I’ve wondered what happened to them. Now, we might actually find out, thanks to you.”
I shrug, grinning. “Well, thanks.” After a moment, I stand. “I guess we should get out of here, then,” I say to Mr. Stark.
He nods. “Yep.”
“Thanks again,” I say to Dr. Connors.
“You’re very welcome.” He rises as well, and walks Mr. Stark and I to the door. “A very good night to you both.”
“You too,” I say, and he closes the door behind us.
As soon as the door closes, I release a breath. “So that was pointless.”
“Not entirely,” Mr. Stark says, pulling out his phone. He pulls up our list, then crosses a name off. “We’ve just narrowed it down to two suspects.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I walk toward the car. “But now we’re basically back to square one.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Mr. Stark unlocks the car and we hop in. As soon as we’re driving down the road again, he says quietly, “I’ve never seen you so angry.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I was even angrier when I found out what Bucky did to my parents. Honestly, you were tame compared to me.” He chuckles, and I join in.
“True,” I say. “So should we head home? And by home, I mean my apartment.”
“Nice try, but not yet. Remember, someone’s still after you.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, slouching down in my seat. “Dang.”
“It’s all right, we’ll get this taken care of soon, and then you can go back to school. Okay?”
I smile, then nod. “Okay.”