Killing Time (26 page)

29

Coach Easley’s old home was a dilapidated hull, badly overgrown with bushes and saplings; one side of the house had collapsed, and vines had overrun the wreckage, making it impossible to tell anything about what the rooms might have been or even where it was safe to step.

There wasn’t a yard anymore, just a more level place for the weeds and bushes to grow. The garage was to the rear of the house, and what had been the driveway was choked with waist-high weeds, honeysuckle vines, and rambling blackberry bushes. “Chigger city,” Knox announced when they got out of the car to see exactly what they were facing. “And this is definitely snake territory; lots of hiding places for them.”

“I’m a city girl; I don’t know what chiggers are.”

“Tiny bastards that burrow into your skin and itch like a son of a bitch.”

That sounded nasty. “The things I do in the line of duty,” she muttered.

Knox removed his jacket and laid it on the seat, then opened the trunk and took out his boots. Today he had on athletic shoes, the same as she did. “Here,” he said. “You put on the boots.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “How would I walk in them? How would I even keep them on? You wear them; you’ll have to be the point man, because you’re big enough to fight this jungle.” His chivalry touched her, because he was genuinely worried about her lack of protection and was willing to give up his boots to her.

To her relief he didn’t argue, probably because he saw she was right about him having to be the point man. From a box in the trunk he took a green can and tossed it to her. “Spray that on every inch of bare skin. It’s insect repellent. Spray your clothes, too.”

Quickly she read the instructions, sprayed herself, then tossed the can back to him for him to do the same. While he was putting on his boots and getting other items out of the trunk, she clipped her holster to her waistband and slipped the pen laser into her pocket; she might need it, wading into that jungle. In a pinch she supposed she could use the laser to clear a tree out of the way, but then there would be the danger of setting everything on fire, plus the laser didn’t have an inexhaustible power source. She didn’t want to use it if she didn’t have to. She wouldn’t hesitate, however, to blast a snake.

When Knox closed the trunk, she saw that he carried a slim, round stick in one hand and a hatchet in the other. “Sawed-off broomstick,” he said, seeing her looking at the stick. “Great for poking into places where you don’t want to stick your hand.”

Then he waded into the wild tangle of overgrowth. He used the stick to poke the ground in front of him, and the hatchet to hack away at bushes so thick he couldn’t push through them. Briars snagged at their clothing, bit through cloth; untangling themselves took time, but the only other option was to just jerk free, which left painful scratches. Within a minute they were both sweating in the humid heat and had covered about half the distance to the garage.

“Damn, what I wouldn’t give for a rain shower to cool things off,” he muttered. He paused to eye the sky, which seemed to have a yellowish tint to the blue. “Might get one this afternoon, from the looks of that sky.”

“What makes you say so?” she asked. Nikita was always annoyed by people who would look at a perfectly sunny sky and announce that rain was on the way. Unless one lived in a desert region, rain was
always
on the way, sooner or later. She couldn’t see anything unusual about the sky; it wasn’t as clear as it had been, but there were no dark clouds, either.

“The feel of the air. It’s too humid, which is thunderstorm-making. And the yellowish color is the leading edge of a front.”

That she understood; his comment was based on science, rather than folklore. Not that folklore wasn’t often right, but she was more comfortable with facts.

Their chances of finding something of value were small, but if anything remained from twenty years before, it would probably be in the garage. The house was far more likely to have been cleaned out before each occupancy, as whatever bits and pieces left behind would be swept up and put in the trash. A garage was different, the receptacle of things people no longer wanted but didn’t want to get rid of, either. She supposed it was sheer stubbornness that made them try at all, that and that Knox evidently couldn’t leave any stone unturned or any condemned property unexplored.

They disturbed swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, a field mouse ran across her shoe and nearly gave her a heart attack, and when they finally reached what remained of the garage, she took one good look at it and shook her head. “That’s a death trap. I’m not going in there.”

What remained of the rickety walls swayed at the slightest touch. There were huge holes in the Swiss-cheese roof; evidently an entire flock of birds lived inside, because they noisily vacated when Knox experimentally shook the frame.

“I don’t want you in there,” he said absently. “It’s dangerous enough with just one person moving things around. But I think I’ll cut some saplings to brace the walls, just in case.”

“If those walls are so rickety that a couple of
sticks
will make a difference, then no one in his right mind will go in.
Right mind
is the operative phrase, of course.”

He gave her a quick grin.”You just have to look at this as an adventure.”

“
You
look at it as an adventure.
I’ll
look at it as dangerous and idiotic.”

“Everyone has a role in life.” As he spoke he grabbed a sapling and bent over, hacking away until he severed it close to the bottom. Another few quick strokes trimmed away the limbs and the willowy top. He was left with about seven feet of fairly sturdy, green wood. He found several more saplings that he judged strong enough, and chopped them down, too.

Realizing she wasn’t going to stop him with an application of common sense, Nikita set herself to helping him. The saplings he’d cut were surprisingly heavy, which made her feel better because it meant they were stronger than she’d thought. She helped him drag them over to the garage, and stood ready to jam one against the wall if it showed signs of falling on him while he wedged the first one into place.

Finding a non-rotten place on the wall was the trick; even an iron railing wouldn’t do any good if the end punched right through the wood. The outer framework was stable enough, and he put the first brace there.

While he was searching for a place to put the second brace, Nikita stepped back and studied the structure. It was big enough to house one vehicle, and there was no sign there had ever been doors that could be closed. It was essentially a large, three-sided shed, with some storage space added onto the right side. The storage space was an afterthought; even with the years of neglect, she could see that the wood on the right side was in better shape, as if it was newer.

She took the broomstick and worked her way around to the right, poking and prodding to dislodge any reptile bush-dwellers. From the front, it looked as if the overgrowth had completely swallowed that side of the building, hiding any openings that might exist. Once she moved to the side, though, she could plainly see where a door had been. There wasn’t one there now, just the black hole of an entrance.

“There’s a doorway over here,” she called. “Looks like a storage space.”

Knox appeared beside her, wiping the sweat from his dirty face. “Newer, too,” he said, noticing the same thing she’d noticed. “This may be where he worked on his model planes. Stay here—”

“My ass,” she replied equably. “I won’t go in that other side, but this part doesn’t look as suicidal.”

“That’s my girl.” He grabbed her and gave her a quick, warm kiss that wasn’t enough for either of them. She fisted her hand in his T-shirt and drew him back, holding him for a more leisurely, deeper effort. He dropped the hatchet and clamped both hands on her ass, lifting her up and against the hard swell of his penis.

“God,” he said, abruptly dropping her back on her heels. “We can’t do this now, and we especially can’t do it here.”

She blew out a shaky breath. “I agree. You can’t touch me again until tonight, not even for just a kiss.”

“I don’t think you have to go that far.”

“I do.” She looked around; if the kiss had gone on much longer, she might have been taking off her clothing right here, surrounded by mice, briars, and assorted other unpleasantness. “Let’s look around and get out of here. I don’t like all of this out-of-control greenery. The forest is one thing; this is a bit spooky.”

“Because Howard hung himself from that tree over there?”

“No, it’s because people used to live here but now it’s abandoned and rotting, and soon there won’t be anything left to show they were here. Also, I think I’m bleeding in a dozen different places from these damn briars—” She stopped as she felt something crawling on her arm. She looked down, made a quick sound of disgust, and slapped a bug away. “I’m also not fond of bugs, and I hate mice.”

“Got it. I’ll hurry.”

He bent and picked up the hatchet, then set to work clearing away the vines and bushes that almost obscured the opening. He poked his head inside. “There’s a lot of stuff in here,” he finally said.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Rotten cardboard boxes, for one thing. Some sort of clamp set up on a board; he must have used it to hold the models while he worked on them. A stack of
Playboy
magazines that I wouldn’t touch for love nor money; looks like rats have been living in them for years.”

She knew what the magazine was, because it had existed for almost a hundred years before becoming defunct. Some carefully preserved issues were occasionally sold at auction, where collectors bought them for ridiculously high prices. They would cry to see these issues abandoned and rotting. She thought it would be a mercy not to tell Knox how much they would be worth in her time.

“Wouldn’t all of this have been thoroughly searched at the time of his suicide?”

“I can’t say. It should have been, but from everything I’ve heard or read, there were no signs of foul play; so I don’t think there was ever a criminal investigation. In a case of suicide, you try to help the family as much as possible.”

He stepped inside the storage area, and Nikita carefully followed, watching where she put her feet. The thick, musty smell of rot filled her nostrils. Junk was piled helter-skelter in the small space: folding metal lawn chairs, discarded clothing, stacks of magazines and newspapers, the cardboard boxes Knox had mentioned. There were two of them, stacked, taped across the top, which was useless now because their bottoms would probably fall out as soon as they were moved.

“Why would anyone go to the trouble to box something up and tape it, then just leave it behind?” she wondered aloud.

“I wonder why people do a lot of things,” he said with a grunt as he booted a chair out of the way.

She didn’t want to touch those nasty boxes, but she didn’t see any way out of it. “Do you have a blanket or tarp in the trunk? Those things will disintegrate when we try to move them. If we can pull them onto a tarp, then we can drag them out of here.”

He took his keys from his pocket. “There’s a tarp. It’s in the bottom of the box I keep in there.”

She made her way back to the car and unlocked the trunk, then dug through a box of equipment and found the green tarp. She also plucked two pairs of plastic gloves from a package that was also in the box.

“Here,” she said when she reached the garage again, handing him his keys, then a pair of gloves.

“Thanks.” He snapped the gloves on like a surgeon, and took the tarp from her. She pulled on her own gloves, and working carefully, they spread the tarp out in front of the boxes. Knox used the hatchet to swipe down some monstrous spiderwebs that hung close to the boxes; then they each carefully moved into the cramped space, one on each side.

As gingerly as possible they shifted the top box, sliding it instead of jerking and lifting, while trying to support the bottom with their hands. It was useless; as soon as the weight of the contents weren’t supported by the box underneath, the box tore apart and dumped the contents onto the tarp.

The same thing happened with the bottom box. As soon as they lifted it, the bottom tore out. By dropping and shoving, they managed to get half the box on the tarp. The spilled contents seemed to be mostly textbooks, stained and musty, but in fairly good shape. They began moving the textbooks to the tarp; they might have belonged to Howard Easley, in which case he might have written something in the margins, or left a paper stuck between the pages.

Knox made a soft sound, staring at a metal box that had been packed in with the textbooks.

“What is it?” Nikita asked as he picked it up.

He glanced up at her, his expression both surprised and gleeful. “I’m not certain, but I think it’s the time capsule.”

30

Nikita looked down at the box. Silly of her, but she’d been expecting something that was shaped like a cylinder, like a capsule of medication. The phrase “time capsule” brought to mind something sleek and capable of traveling through time, not a rather large metal box that was about eighteen by twelve inches, and perhaps five inches high. “Are you certain?”

“Not until we open it, no. The time capsule was wrapped in waterproof plastic before it was buried, too. But it was this shape; I think it was custom-made at a local metalworking plant.”

The box was in surprisingly good condition, insulated as it had been all those years by the heavy textbooks. She squatted next to it, carefully looking it over but not touching it. “It’s been here all these years; it wasn’t buried beneath the flagpole at all.”

“I watched them bury it. The coach must have come back that night and dug it up again. It was New Year’s night, cold, snowing, the bowl games were on; I doubt there was any traffic at all in town, if he timed it right, waited until the third-shift deputies left on patrol.” He squatted next to her. “There goes your theory that someone was sent in ahead of Hugh and got the box for safekeeping.”

“Then the flash must have been Hugh transiting in; with a laser, he could have dug that hole in no time, found out the box wasn’t there, and left before the security cameras caught up in time.”

“Then he must have transitioned right back out, because there were no footprints, anything to show how he did it. I thought these links were like a two-lane highway, with no exit points other than the beginning and end. Wouldn’t he have gone back to your time?”

“Theoretically, it depends on the link settings,” she said slowly. “I heard that the Transit Laboratory was working to develop links that could be programmed in the field, but I haven’t heard that they’re certified for use yet. The regular links have two settings: one for the destination, and one for home. The traveler activates the setting needed. If Hugh is transiting short distances back and forth, then he must have stolen the prototypes.”

“That’s damn interesting,” Knox drawled. “Explains how the killer got into Taylor Allen’s house and out again without touching anything that we could tell. I thought he’d wiped his prints off the doorknobs and gone out through the automatic garage doors, but if Hugh is just popping in and out, he could show up anywhere.”

Nikita’s hair lifted and she automatically looked around, then blew out a relieved breath. “He’d have to know exactly where we are and have the GPS coordinates before he could transition to us. He wouldn’t want to do that anyway unless he could be certain he was in a position where we couldn’t see him. Remember what happened to Luttrell? The traveler is at a disadvantage until the transition is complete.”

“If we go back to my house, he
has
the exact coordinates,” Knox pointed out. “I don’t know how he tracked you there—”

“I do,” Nikita interrupted. “Mrs. Lacey.”

Knox opened his mouth, probably to automatically disagree, then abruptly shut it. A look of cold anger edged into his eyes.
Cops didn’t believe in coincidence.
First Mrs. Lacey had seen them together at Wal-Mart, and been visibly upset by Nikita’s presence; that very night she had made a horrible nuisance of herself by calling repeatedly, something that Knox thought was very much out of character for her. Then she had done something even more out of character by going to Knox’s house and beating on the door. There had been a man with her last night; then, this morning, a car rented by Hugh Byron was parked just a few doors down from Knox’s house. No, that was stretching happenstance way too far.

“He didn’t know for certain who you were,” Knox said, thinking aloud. “Otherwise he would have tried to kill you last night when you were alone.”

“He’d have had a better chance of succeeding once you got home and we were otherwise occupied,” she said drily. “I wouldn’t have noticed then if he’d transitioned right beside the bed.”

“Good point,” he said, and winked at her.

“Before that, I was very much on edge, and watchful. If I was just someone named Tina, then there was no point in killing me. I think all he was trying to do last night and this morning was get a look at me.”

“Think your disguise held?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Remember, he’s from my time; he knows how easy it is to change hair color. And we’ve worked in the same division for a couple of years, so he knows me. The disguise was mainly to fool your guys, remember? To put out the story that I’d left town. Hugh would know better, but he didn’t know where to look for me until that chance meeting with Mrs. Lacey; then she must have told him about it and he put two and two together.”

“She can’t have any idea what’s really going on,” Knox said. “She isn’t . . .” His voice trailed off and he stared into the distance for a moment. “Shit,” he finally said, very softly. “There’s only one thing that would pull her into this. The son of a bitch has told her she can go back and save Rebecca. She has no one else; there was just Rebecca. She’d do anything to get her back.”

Nikita briefly closed her eyes as she instantly switched from being extremely annoyed with Mrs. Lacey to feeling such deep pity for her she could scarcely bear it. She knew how her own mother had suffered from the loss of a child, even with a loving husband and three other children to give her comfort. Mrs. Lacey was alone. Damn Hugh Byron for being such a cold-blooded son of a bitch, to use a mother’s grief and desperation.

“She must be the one who shot at me,” Nikita said. “Do you know if she’s proficient with weapons?”

“I don’t know. A lot of women know how to shoot, especially if they grew up out in the country.” He looked down at the metal box, his expression grim. “I say we find out just what the hell is in here that this bastard has murdered three people for.”

He picked up the box and carried it out of the rickety building. Nikita hesitated, then grabbed one end of the tarp and hauled it out with its load of books. Knox was already hunkered down in a sunny patch amid the weeds and briars, working at the lid of the box. It didn’t have a padlock, but after years of not being opened, the custom fit of the lid had become even tighter. Finally he wedged the sharp edge of the hatchet under the edge of the lid and jerked upward; the lid flew open, exposing the contents.

Carefully he began taking out each item, handing them in turn to Nikita, who placed them on the tarp. They were:

A yearbook

A newspaper

A cassette tape

A cassette player

Pekeville’s articles of incorporation

A written history of the county and town

Assorted photographs

A handwritten letter from the mayor, Harlan Forbes

The 1985 Peke County telephone book

A list of all the Peke County residents who had died in war

A carefully folded American flag that had flown at the Peke County Courthouse

A Sears catalog

Knox gaped at the catalog, then collapsed on his butt in the weeds, holding his sides and howling with laughter. “I don’t believe it,” he gasped. “A Sears catalog! Who in hell put that in a time capsule? Either they were drunk when they thought that one up, or somebody had a sense of humor.”

Nikita had lifted the heavy catalog and was gently leafing through the pages. “Oh, I don’t know. I think this would give a fairly good picture of what life was like in 1985. Look, it has prices, descriptions, pictures. This could be very valuable both as a collector’s item and in the information it gives.”

“Well, unless it gives the formula for time travel, we struck out. I
know
thirteen things were put in the box, so where’s the thirteenth item? Did Coach Easley take something
out
?”

“Then why not just take out that one item and leave the box there?” Nikita asked reasonably. “There wasn’t any need to take the whole box if one thing was all he wanted.”

“The man committed suicide a little later; he wasn’t exactly in a logical frame of mind.”

She lifted the heavy catalog and fanned the pages. To her utter surprise, because she hadn’t really thought she’d find anything, a piece of white paper fluttered out onto the tarp.

Knox reached out and picked it up, read it.

“What does it say?”

“It’s his suicide note, I guess.
’To hell with it. I’m tired of this fucking mess.’
Quote, unquote. And why in hell he tucked it inside a Sears catalog, in a time capsule, then sealed the capsule in a box of books, I don’t have a clue. I’d say he went nuts.”

“Some sort of psychological breakdown. It happens; the brain chemicals alter, and we still don’t know why.”

“See if there’s anything else stuck in there. We might luck out.”

She shook the catalog again, but nothing fell out. Disappointed, she sat on the tarp and looked at everything he’d taken out of the box. Perhaps the newspaper— Carefully she examined it, because the pages already had a brittle feel to them, but nothing was inserted inside the folds of newsprint. The articles of incorporation were just that, without any extra sheets of paper added.

Knox went through the yearbook, without results. They looked at the backs of all the photographs, but all that had been written on them were names, dates, and places. The mayor’s letter was one page. The written history was just a written history. Frustrated but careful not to disturb the folds, Knox even searched the flag.

“Hell, all that’s left to do is listen to the cassette, see if there’s anything other than music on it,” he said, picking up the tape and examining it. “Not that we can, because the batteries will be dead—assuming they even put in batteries, considering it would have been a waste of money.” Dropping the tape, he picked up the small tape player and was about to turn it over when he stopped and said quietly, “There’s a tape already in the player.”

They drove to the nearest convenience store and bought some AA batteries, which Knox installed in the back of the cassette player. Sitting in the car, he punched
Play . . .
and the number one song of 1984, “Thriller,” filled the air. Grimacing, he stopped the tape and took it out. “I always hated that song,” he grumbled. “My favorite Michael Jackson song was ‘Ben.’ It was about a rat.”

“That’s scary,” she remarked.

“You should see the video for ‘Thriller’; now that’s scary.”

He popped the other cassette into place, and hit
Play.

There was some static, then a very quiet voice began talking. “This is to David Li, Marjorie van Camp, and JoJo Netzer. You guys will know what to do.” The voice then began to talk about gravity modification, and went into mathematical theories and formulas that made absolutely no sense to them, but was very probably what they had been looking for. The tape ended, “Sorry I won’t be here to help. I’m checking out.”

Knox rewound the tape, then took it out. “Well, that’s the thirteenth item, and what Hugh is looking for. I don’t think he belongs to any Luddite group, though; he’s too willing to use the technology. He wants this tape, but not because he wants to stop time travel technology from being invented.”

“No,” Nikita agreed. “I thought—we were meant to think—that was the reason, but I agree that scenario doesn’t fit Hugh. He isn’t anti-time-travel; he was one of the most enthusiastic about it. I don’t really care why he wants it. We have it, we need to keep it safe, and we have to apprehend Hugh. Everything else is secondary.”

“You say he isn’t likely to materialize in front of us. What’s his most likely action, then?”

“He has a laser. All he needs is a clear shot.”

“Then we’re going to ground,” Knox said. “I may get my ass fired, but I’m taking some time off work, starting right now. We have the advantage in that we know he’s looking for you, so we pretty much know
where
he’ll be looking. We just have to make sure we see him first.”

“I have a gift for you,” Hugh Byron said to Ruth as they lay together on a blanket next to a meandering stream. He was in a good mood; he knew where to find Stover, and within the next few hours he would eliminate that particular problem. She knew too much about everything. He couldn’t take the chance that she would ever return to tell tales. McElroy was supposed to handle things on that end, but errors were occasionally made; witness Stover’s presence here.

She smiled but didn’t open her eyes. She was half dozing, tired after making love. “What?”

“Look,” he said, and she opened her eyes. Her gaze fastened on the items he presented to her.

“What do I do?” she whispered, still not looking away from them.

“You put one on each wrist and ankle. When the time comes, I’ll show you how to activate them. Promise me you won’t try to use them without me; it can be very dangerous.”

“I promise,” she said, reaching out to touch the links with trembling fingers. “They look so . . . ordinary. Are they yours? How will you get back if I have them?”

“They’re not mine, they’re Stover’s. I found where she buried them.” Someone had screwed up the timing of her transition; McElroy was supposed to make sure the next agent sent came through at a certain time and place, so Hugh could take care of that agent the same way he had Houseman, but when Hugh was en route, he saw the bright flash and knew he was too late. By the time he got there, Stover had already transitioned and disappeared.

The only satisfaction he’d been able to gain was in locating her links and taking them, making sure she couldn’t return. Finding them hadn’t been particularly difficult; the book said to bury them at the transition point so the agent would know exactly where they were, and Stover went by the book. All he’d had to do was locate the disturbed area of leaves and dirt, and dig them up.

“I can’t wait to see her again,” Ruth said. “I’ve been going over and over in my head what I’ll say to her, to make her go to the doctor and have those tests run. She’s so—she could be so stubborn sometimes. She was busy, with the wedding coming up and trying to get everything ready. She won’t want to go. I’ll have to make her listen.”