Beyond This Time: A Time-Travel Suspense Novel (47 page)

* * *

Although it was only six o’clock in the morning Kat raced down the hospital corridor, ignoring the visiting hours rules. Nothing could keep her from seeing her Pop. If need be she’d bust down the CCU door if they tried to stop her. Luckily no one interfered and she slipped into his room.

The robust figure in the bed stirred and opened his eyes. “Kathleen.” He held his arms out.

She held him tight and buried her face in his neck. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

“Don’t be worrying about that, you were a long ways off. Lettie Ruth took good care of me.”

Kat raised her head and looked at him. “Lettie Ruth?”

He gestured to an unmade cot in the corner. “Sister, won’t go home. She’s been sleeping here since Friday evening.”

“Where … where is she now?”

“Stepped down the hall. She’ll be glad to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

Unsure whether or not he remembered the way things were
before,
she remained silent. Did he remember once upon a time Lettie Ruth had disappeared?

When her aunt walked into the room, emotions flooded Kat’s system. Her harrowing visit to 1963 whirled before her eyes in vivid Technicolor. The spinning increased until she felt like she was falling through time.

Cottonfield. White pickup. Ku Klux Klan. Blood. A ginger-haired man. Rain.

She heard the conversation as if from a distance.

“Help me get her on the cot, Lettie.”

“Lay back down, Alvin. I can lift her just fine.”

“Wake her up, Lettie.”

“She’ll come around on her own. Give her a minute. You know she’s been trying for almost a week to get back here to you. The child is exhausted.”

“She’s still got the bruises.”

“I would imagine so.”

“You think she knows?”

“Hush, Brother, she’ll hear you.”

“Hear what?” Kat asked, her mind foggy and heavy.

“Don’t worry yourself, child,” Rayson said. “It will all come out in the by and by.”

Lettie Ruth insisted Kat remain on the cot for an hour before allowing her to leave the hospital, and only then if she promised to go directly home and get in bed.

“But I’m supposed to go to choir practice this evening,” Kat argued, although she had no idea why she knew this information. She wished past and present would stop mingling in her head. “I have a solo tomorrow.”

“You can sing next week,” Lettie Ruth said. “I’ll smooth it over with Dreama.”

“She’ll blow a gasket.” The choir director’s legendary temper still caused Kat to tremble, even after 29 years.

“I’ll handle her. And if I have trouble, I’ll let Taxi take over.”

“I wish you could fix it with my congregation,” Rayson said. “Do you know who’s doing the preaching tomorrow morning?”

“Webster Avenue will be joining us at Hope and Glory,” Lettie Ruth said. “Lamar Gordon’s in the pulpit.”

“Didn’t he just have a birthday?” Kat asked, surprised that she even knew this information.

“Yes, he did,” Lettie Ruth said with an odd smile. “I made him a chocolate cake.”

“But he never got to eat it,” Rayson grumbled.

“That was some birthday,” Lettie Ruth said, her voice taking on a far away quality.

Kat shook her head. There they go again, she thought. Old folks always remembering the past.

“It sure was,” Rayson said. “I remember when he—”

=THIRTY-SEVEN=

When Kat walked into the Daisy Wheel café, she saw her partner already seated in the back booth. As usual, Carolyn Mitchell’s ginger-red hair, piled haphazardly on top of her head, threatened to tumble down at the slightest breeze.

As Kat slid into the booth she looked up and grunted. Carolyn didn’t function well before noon.

“Did you read this article?” Carolyn asked, shoving the newspaper across the table.

“Which one?”

Carolyn pointed to the front page. “‘MYSTERY SOLVED AFTER 37 YEARS’. Seems three men from Maceyville— Oh, just read it for yourself,” she said, yawning. “It’s way too early.”

“One of these days you’ll learn to go to bed before the sun comes up.”

“It’s hard to get away sometimes.”

“So stop spending all your time at The Blue playing the piano.”

“I can’t. It’s in my blood.”

“Hush. I’m reading now,” Kat told her partner.

MACEYVILLE SUN TIMES

April 8, 2000

MYSTERY SOLVED AFTER 37-YEARS

On April 5, 1963 Floyd Barnes and (Little) Carl Patterson vanished without a trace. Yesterday County Coroner Phil Young positively identified the remains found in a swamp near the Mississippi state line as Barnes and Patterson.

Their remains had been wrapped in logging chains and shoved beneath a stone outcropping.

At the time of their disappearance an intensive search of the area turned up negligible results. Since both were known to be active members of the local Ku Klux Klan many speculated they’d offended the powerful organization.

Weather also contributed to the failure of the search at the time. Long time residents recall a big storm on April 5
^th
which kept people indoors most of the day and evening, thus reducing the number of potential eye witnesses.

Dr. Timothy Biggers told this reporter he’d been near the Mississippi state line that evening, but didn’t see anything unusual. “No one was out and about that night,” said Biggers. “I’m sure if anyone had seen any suspicious activity they would have contacted the police.”

The early sixties were turbulent times for Alabama. In June of 1963 Medgar Evers, field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was assassinated. September 15
^th
, four young girls died in the bombing of the 16
^th
Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Maceyville also had its share of tragedies. A spate of house fires, linked to Barnes and Patterson, plagued the east Hollow and claimed numerous lives.

It was this atmosphere of violence that fueled Barnes and Patterson’s racist attitudes. They were allegedly responsible for the arson fatality of Dilmer Richards and Tupelo Josephs. However, before an investigation or legal action could be launched the two men disappeared.

“It was like they fell through a crack in the earth,” Robert Trewesman said of the missing men. “I liked those boys. They came in my bar, Bubba’s Julep Junction, all the time and never caused no trouble.”

In an interview Pastor Lamar Gordon (Webster Avenue Methodist Church) implied Barnes and Patterson had participated in KKK harassment at his home when he was thirteen-years-old. The alleged visit occurred three days prior to the men’s disappearance. Gordon’s neighbors reported seeing the men set a fire that nearly destroyed the Gordon’s home.

Another murder on this same date is believed to be connected to disappearance of Barnes and Patterson. In the early morning hours of April 6
^th
, moonshine runner Billy Lee Mitchell’s body was found lying in the middle of Park Street. He’s been shot twice in the head with a .38 caliber handgun.

When officers responded to the scene they discovered the body of Louis Smith (father of Police Chief Arlin Smith) shot and his body stuffed into the trunk of Mitchell’s black 1962 Chevy Impala.

A note found at the crime scene implied Mitchell and Louis Smith may have had a falling out.

Floyd Barnes and Carl Patterson’s involvement in this dispute is not known, however all four men had been seen together earlier in the day.

The bodies may have been discovered, but the mysterious “why” still remains. Why did four young sons of the south meet with such violent deaths?

“If anyone knows the answer, they aren’t talking,” said Chief of Police Arlin Smith.

Kat looked up.

“Billy Lee Mitchell is my daddy.” Carolyn’s cornflower-blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “God, no wonder Mom took off for Pennsylvania. You think it’s too late to change my name?”

“Nothing’s wrong with your name. Be proud. The sixties were just bad down here. Lots of mean stuff going on, you’re lucky your mother took you away.”

“You ever wonder what it must have been like back then?”

“I don’t have to wonder. I know.”

“Oh, that Black-Awareness thing?”

“More or less.”

“Want to hear something weird? The day all this happened is the very same date Mom and I left Maceyville. The story goes Billy Lee beat the shit out of both of us and from nowhere this wonderful man, kind of a guardian angel, appeared. He rescued us and talked Mom into leaving town. We’d probably both be dead if he hadn’t come along.” Carolyn opened her police jacket and folded back the lapel, reveling a copper and brass cowboy boot pin. “My angel gave me this pin. He said the boot was a reminder that sometimes I might have to kick the door in.”

“He was right about the door, partner.”

Carolyn touched the little cowboy boot. “I always wished I knew his name.”

“Call him Elvis.” Kat blinked back tears. “You would have loved him.”

“I think I always have.”

OUR PLACE IN TIME

PROLOGUE

Wendell Altaha shook his head when his grandfather offered him the canteen. Twelve-year-olds didn’t drink water from a mountain spring, they drank soda. He and Grandfather Harmon had been climbing for three hours, and Wendell was tired. He glared at the old man’s back, which was the only thing he’d seen since they started this hike. He wondered why his grandfather wasn’t Grandfather tired. Jeez, the old coot had more energy than Superman. He never got tired or hungry. Just kept slurping that stupid water.

“No point in asking him to slow down,” Wendell grumbled under his breath, when he slipped on a loose rock and twisted his ankle. Grandfather never paid any attention to complaints. He just closed his eyes, or looked in the opposite direction until Wendell shut up.

By the time they’d reached the summit, the sun was setting. In spite of his determination to not enjoy this forced trip, Wendell found himself admiring the streaks of orange and pink, with a faint hint of purple around the edges of the wispy clouds.

He wanted to ask ‘why’ when Grandfather told him to take his clothes off and go inside the sweat lodge. But something stopped him. Maybe it was the Medicine Man-look in Grandfather’s eyes, or maybe, deep down inside, buried beneath his twelve-year-old scepticism of all things Apache, Wendell was interested.