Beyond This Time: A Time-Travel Suspense Novel (6 page)

On Mitch’s fifth birthday his father hauled the family down to the annual Ku Klux Klan rally. The hate spewing speeches, burning crosses, and hooded men in robes terrified the kindergartner. When a very drunk and belligerent Billy Lee decided to anoint his son with the white hood, Mitch had run away and hidden in the woods. There had been hell to pay when the old man finally located him hunkered down in a rotted out log.

One year to the day, worn out from constant battles to keep Mitch from turning into a redneck racist, Pamela Mitchell packed one suitcase and took her six-year-old son north. Other than the court ordered two week summer visits with Billy Lee, Mitch spent the next twelve years on his grandparent’s farm in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to his mother, his life turned out good. He’d never expected to end up right back where he started, but maybe sometimes a person follows a predetermined course. If not for the full ride football scholarship to the University of Alabama and his mother’s fondness for her alma mater, Mitch would never have returned to the Heart of Dixie. Fate? Or stupidity?

Even though he’d lived in Tuscaloosa during his four years of college, which was only thirty miles from Maceyville, he’d never contacted Billy Lee. Mitch wondered if his father ever knew his son had played for the Crimson Tide, or later on, six years of pro-ball with the New Orleans Saints. The old coot probably stayed too drunk to have recognized Mitch if he did happen to see a Monday night football game.

Pamela Mitchell had been proud of the son she raised alone, even if she didn’t remember him anymore. Mitch missed being able to talk with his mother. Several months ago a stroke had taken not only her ability to walk and speak, but her memory as well. A sad end to a sad life.

When Billy Lee died of cirrhosis of the liver, Mitch had inherited his kudzu-covered farmhouse, decrepit barn, and the Impala. His father’s possessions weren’t all that impressive. Billy Lee had never taken very good care of himself or the farm, and both had died early from neglect.

Mitch let the place stand for eight years, then when he and Lisa set a wedding date, they decided instead of spending money to make the house habitable, they’d have it razed and sell the land. The amount they’d received had made a nice down payment on the brick house in town.

“At least you didn’t kill the car, you old boozer,” he mumbled.

The only noteworthy thing Billy Lee had ever done in his whole pathetic life was to have a good time. Of course, his father’s idea of a good time involved ferrying bootleg whiskey all over the county. His long running game of chase with the ATF agents and the Alabama State Patrol had resulted in numerous wrecked transmissions and burnt out clutches. To this day, if Mitch tried to push the Chevy beyond 65 mph, she’d choke, smoke, and then die in the middle of the road.

He tried to remember when the Impala’s quirky engine behavior began. He recalled Billy Lee complaining it started around Christmas 1962, shortly after he’d bought it. As the story went, his father had been trying to outrun a carload of ATF agents on the old highway the first time she quit on him. Billy and his sidekick, some redneck idiot named Floyd Barnes, ended up celebrating the holidays in the Maceyville lock up.

Prior to raising the hood, Mitch ran the soft buffing cloth over the entire automobile body, periodically scrubbing at microscopic dirt specks. His face, reflected in the high gloss wax job, captivated his attention. He appeared haggard. The dark circles ringing his blue eyes made him think of a raccoon. Agitated, he ran a hand through his ginger-colored hair.

He looked like an old man with one foot in the grave. Or one foot in the past. Images of dried up Egyptian mummies, which would blow away with the slightest breeze, raided his brain. He’d seen those prune people in the museum, and he didn’t look one whole hell of a lot better right this minute.

“James, old boy,” he told his twin, “you closely resemble a carcass my dog once dragged home.”

Could his brief foray into 1963 have altered his biological clock? Going back and forth in time, no telling what might happen to your body.

“That settles it,” he muttered. If a single jaunt screwed him up this much, it would take a whole army and then some to get him to try it again.

Oh yeah, he knew exactly what Kat would propose the next time he saw her: Another trip back in time. She’d drag out that damn computer printout, point to another name on the Arson/Fatality list and play the sympathy card. “But Mitch,” she’d say, “if we can prevent so and so’s murder, then we are morally obligated as officer’s of the law.”

Bull pucky. Any Tom, Dick or Harry who died that long ago should stay dead. What business did he have traipsing through the past stirring up Lord knows what kind of mischief?

“I’ll tell you this, Kathleen Rayson Templeton,” Mitch shook a finger in his partner’s imaginary face. “We’ve got more than enough criminal activity on our plate in the here and now. There is no reason for us to look for more.”

Mitch fished in his pocket for the car keys. He’d go see Kat and tell her exactly what was what. When he withdrew his hand, the crumpled computer sheet fell to the ground. He stooped to pick it up. Bent over, hands on knees, he froze, holding his breath. Laying there all balled up, it made him think of a coiled rattlesnake. If I touch it, the damn thing will bite me, he thought. Bite me so bad no one will be able to save me.

Suddenly a puff of wind rolled the paper several inches closer to his feet; it began to unfold like a flower.

Childishly, he began to bargain with the monster hidden within the paper. “Here’s the deal, if you open up any more I promise to take another shot at Park Street. On the other hand, if you stay wadded up, I’ll forget all this nonsense. What do you say?”

The paper lay still, as though considering his offer, then it crinkled and another crease opened, revealing one name: Jane Doe.

“Forget it. I’m staying right here. There’s too much voodoo shit in the air.”

* * *

The comforting aroma of chicory coffee filled the yellow shiplap house. Kat leaned her elbows on the counter and watched as the water completed its journey through the machine innards and into the glass decanter. Her sense of time was all screwed up. How could she have showered, and taken the weird trip to la-la land, before ten cups of water filtered through the pot? It made no sense. But then, the past few hours weren’t exactly stellar examples of the sane and normal.

She removed the pot from beneath the drip spout, not caring as the final drops skittered and danced across the heated surface, she needed a jolt of reality. And nothing was more real than the bitter taste of chicory coffee.

Icy fingers wrapped around the steaming mug, she pushed through the screened door and walked out to the back yard. She sat in a small patch of early sunlight, pulling the soft terry cloth robe tighter and tighter against her trembling body, hoping the warmth could drive the dark chill away.

Like an excited child in a toy store, her mind raced from one thing to another as the sun climbed in the sky. Back and forth, between the disappearing Honda, to the man on Park Street, to the display window, to the phone call. On and on she raced, until an exhausted terry cloth bundle fell asleep in the bright morning light.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, Kat retreated inside, carefully locking the door behind her. She traveled from room to room, turning on every light and closing the curtains at each window. Her nest secured, she curled up on the sofa and pulled her mother’s favorite blue afghan up to her chin. However, the old blanket, a cherished friend that had given her comfort since childhood, did little to assuage her fears.

She’d had her fill of bodiless voices and phantoms. She wanted and needed the company of a real live person with red blood coursing through their veins. A person with warm skin and a beating heart. The question of with whom to share all her fears and mixed up thoughts loomed like a specter in the waning light.

Logic dictated she select Mitch. After all, he’d been on Park Street; seen the same things. But he’d taken himself out of contention early on. After partnering for five years, she knew better than to expect him to change his mind. He’d made it painstakingly clear he intended to ignore the early morning events. To him, nothing had happened, and because of this stance, he wouldn’t be receptive to hearing about phone calls from a showerhead.

She loved Mitch, but sometimes he could be a royal pain in the pahooty. And right now she needed an open minded person to listen and acknowledge her theories were possible, if not wholly credible. Unfortunately, her partner failed to meet those qualifications.

That left one name on a very short list: her father, Reverend Alvin Rayson.

Kathleen Ruth, was the only child of Alvin and Dolores Rayson. When she was six, her mother, the Switzerland of the family, the neutral ground on which her opinionated husband and equally stubborn daughter met, died of ovarian cancer. Without Dolores, and her peace making skills, the years that followed were often stormy and always dramatic.

Shortly after high school graduation—in yet another grandiose display of her independence—Kathleen Rayson met, married, and divorced William Templeton all within six months.

Her short-lived marriage had set off World War III between Kat and the reverend. Pop so intensely disliked the smooth talking, arrogant and sinful William Templeton that he’d isolated himself. His one man cold war lasted as long as her marriage did. With the husband gone, the father and daughter relationship resumed its stormy course.

After a brief lull, their battles once again escalated. They finally reached epic proportions the day the twenty-two-year-old Kat announced, after three years at Howard University that she intended to switch her major from History to Police Science. And as a footnote added, “After graduation I’m applying to the Maceyville Police Department.” This Sunday dinner proclamation had ignited a series of high voltage debates which resulted in a polite truce between parent and child.

The Reverend Alvin Paul Rayson, minister of the Demopolis Hope and Glory Baptist Church, maintained the position that, “Violence—or, God forbid, taking a life—was WRONG. Wrong because the Bible said, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. Period.”

Six years after graduating from the police academy, Kat still fervently worked to convince her father that law enforcement didn’t necessarily equate to violence or killing. But their opinions were so diametrically opposed she doubted common ground would ever be reached. And she did not foresee any great changes in the near future.

In spite of all their skirmishes, they miraculously maintained a loving relationship. When not on Sunday duty, Kat drove the twenty miles to Demopolis and sang in the Hope and Glory Baptist choir, then cooked dinner for her father. And no matter what, she could always talk to him.

=FIVE=

It had taken
a full week before Kat felt capable of sharing what had happened on Park Street with her Pop. On Saturday night she’d fried chicken, made potato salad and baked beans to take to Demopolis. She wanted to talk to Pop, not have to worry about cooking after church.

She drove over for the church service and then invited him to a backyard picnic. Braced by his rip-roaring sermon, she eased into the subject during the meal.

Understanding Pop’s misgivings and worries each time she put on the uniform, Kat deliberately omitted a few facts. Facts such as why she and Mitch had gone to Park Street in the first place—the stakeout for a serial arsonist—and the weird 1963 connections. She simplified things by saying they’d been on patrol when they noticed a strange man lurking in the shadows.

Pop had grown unusually quiet during her tale, but she was grateful for the interest reflected in his honey-colored eyes.

When his silence continued as they packed up the remains of their picnic and moved indoors, Kat began to panic. Then she began to what-if.
What-if,
he thought the whole thing sounded like a ghost story designed to scare the britches off junior high girls on a stormy night?
What-if
, he didn’t believe anything she said?