Paradigm Rift: Book One of the Back to Normal Series (27 page)

Not yet, at least.

The idea that a tiny event could ripple outward and replace aspects of the future was not even at the level of a theory in his own deliberations at this point.

But the others believed it, or, at the very least feared it. Denver had been trying to be a model Jumper. He had memorized the Four Accords. He probably could have written a one-page paper about each of them, but his current perspective was strangely not in accord with the Accords.

He was yet in the early stages of
survival
mode, only a smidge past
denial
mode. Many of the salient points of being a good citizen of the Jumper community were lost on a hopelessly out of place man seeking to find his place.

He glanced down.

This ain’t Pandora’s Box, guys, come on
.

Still, a burning knot grew in the pit of his stomach and a certain strange apprehension built up inside the skeptical thief. Denver spun the box about on the floor and toyed with the token lock for a few seconds. He grabbed a small tool and snapped the lid open without much trouble.

He raised the cover and bathed the interior in a pool of light.

Nice collection. A digital watch with a black plastic band, shiny red flip phone…battery’s dead, go figure…a thumb drive, a small flashlight, and a five dollar bill
.

Denver picked up the cash and looked at the date,
2013
. He remembered his first diner visit, and looked at all four corners—one was almost completely torn off.

That’s gotta be my money. But how did the newspaper editor get it?

The temptation crossed his mind of simply removing the offensive money from the box. A flood of rationalizations broke over him. No one would know. Plus, he was already in enough hot water with the powers that be regarding his lost wallet.

He started to put it in his pocket, when Garrett’s irritated voice from the hallway broke the silence. “You done yet?”

Denver reconsidered his little cover-up and shoved the money back into the box and closed the lid. He deposited it all back into the safe. “All clear!”

____________________________________

Ike Sanders was accustomed to rising before the chickens, but half past one in the morning was too darn early, even for him. A “sorry to wake you” phone call from his brother—who was in the middle of a barnyard emergency—prompted the impromptu, red-eye express through Normal.

Ike was always aggravated
that the best path with the least amount of miles, also entailed the most amount of traffic signs. And, of course, right through the center of town.

But at this ungodly hour, he considered stop signs as little more than scarlet and white landmarks (actually, a few of them were still yellow and black, but those were outside the city limits). Ike rolled past them, confident that the Chief and Officer Billy were exactly where he should be right now.

Of course, Ike was being a bit of a hypocrite to his own philosophy that anyone out and about in the middle of the night was just up to no good.

He had no idea how right he was this night in Normal.

_____________________________________

“On three,” Garrett declared out of breath, as he and Denver prepared to lift the safe over the bumper and then down into the trunk of the car. They locked eyes with each other.

“One…two…
three
.” The metal box scraped the edge of the vehicle, but the operation was a success.

Garrett looked up as he shut the trunk. “I, uh, I will get the tools and the bed sheet and all out of her office. Why don’t you go back up front and start roughing the place up somewhat?”

Denver nodded, popped his flashlight on, and made his way back up to the foyer. He started overturning a few chairs and scattered some papers from the countertop all across the tile floor.

_____________________________________

Ike had just blown through another uptown stop sign when a flash of light caught his eye inside the
Journal
. He began slowing down, far more than he had for any intersection thus far, and struggled to identify the source of light.

_____________________________________

Denver came out from behind the counter just in time to see the pair of headlights not quite twenty-five yards away.

“
Car! Car!
” he yelled out in a panic-stricken but controlled shout. He dove hard to the floor and covered his flashlight. Garrett rolled behind a wall in the back as well.

Denver’s ears could track the loose muffler as the truck rolled by, but the pounding of his own heart was almost as loud. He peeked out and followed the beams rippling across the venetian blinds. He was thrilled when he finally saw the white headlights change to red taillights, and then to no lights at all.

Frazier called out. “All clear?”

Denver raised up on all fours and crept up to the left window. He pinched the bottom corner of the blinds and lifted them, ever so slightly. The dirt-covered pickup truck was making a left turn at the end of the square.

Denver leaned back and released the blinds. “All clear.”

_____________________________________

Ike rounded the uptown corner and killed his lights, coming to a lazy stop along the curb. He glanced out the window back towards the
Journal
. He knew he had a duty to help his family, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he also had a civic duty of investigation.

Pastor Guilliams may not have been the most inspiring preacher (according to Ike) but he had continually reminded the congregation about being your brother’s keeper.

Now without a doubt, Ike’s
physical
brother needed him. But Ike couldn’t shake the echoes of Pastor Guilliams’ fiery admonition that a brother is anyone in need.

And tonight, it sure looked like the
Journal
was in need, to some degree. Either out of obligation or indignation, Ike yielded to that still, small voice. A distressed cow would have to wait a few minutes more.

He shut the engine off, but the motor had a mind of its own, rattling and choking and sputtering as if in the throes of death. He patted the dash. “Come on girl, go to sleep.”

With a furious shake the truck went silent. Ike had been meaning to rebuild the carburetor for at least the last five years, but that repair job somehow never seemed to be convenient. He resolved that if the truck ever started backfiring, maybe then he would get serious about it.

Maybe.

After pulling his keys out and stashing them in their usual home above his visor, Ike climbed out. He wasn’t a spring chicken, but decades of farm work had molded him into a powerful yet lanky middle-aged man. He dug around in the bed of the truck hunting for his tire iron. The handy weapon was found beneath a couple of cinder blocks, and the duty-bound citizen took off towards the newspaper office.

Ike wondered what the people in the town would think if they saw him passing in and out of the shadows uptown at this time of night, lugging a lethal metal bar. Most knew he was inclined to neither liquor nor violence, so that would rule out two possible scandalous scenarios.

But it didn’t really matter, no one noticed the movements of the farmer-turned-vigilante.

He closed in on the
Journal
, slowing down just several yards away. He was hugging the inside of the sidewalk when he witnessed another small flash of light through the closest window. Ike’s pulse quickened and he inched up to the edge of the brick building. He rolled to his right and peered through the glass, witnessing a stranger knock a large picture off of the far wall.

Ike dropped back for a moment, then bent forward again, spotting the tell-tale flashlight beam of a second intruder in the hallway. He took a deep breath and leaned his conflicted head back against the bricks.

Ike wasn’t entirely sure if Pastor Guilliams would approve of him whacking someone with a tire iron in the name of being a good Samaritan, but he was fixing to do just that. He felt especially justified since there had been a rash of these breakins in a town whose biggest crime problem of late had been a string of window eggings over by the University.

He tightened his already tight grip on the bar and ducked down below the window sill, gliding toward the front door.

_____________________________________

Denver finished casting a few more papers on the floor, and paused to survey his professional vandalism. He smiled and called out. “I think I'm done up—”

He may have finished the sentence, but no one—including Denver—could possibly have heard it above the tremendous explosion of glass, wood, metal, and flesh that imploded into the foyer. A shower of shrapnel hit Denver in the back as he yanked his head around just in time to see the farmer lunging at him.

Denver narrowly avoided the first blow from the metal rod when it crashed down on the tile floor. In the fury of confusion he still managed to scream. “
Run! Run!
”

Frazier snatched up the bed sheet and his remaining tools, charging like an NFL lineman out the back, protecting his face the whole way.

Back in the foyer, the farmer went tumbling down with the force of his own failed swing, and Denver took the opportunity to jump up and flee. He took two steps and fell victim to his own vandalism, slipping on a pile of papers and slammed face-first into the floor. The farmer recovered and towered over him, as Denver struggled like a flailing turtle to roll over onto his back.

Ike raised the bar of justice above his own head. “Two things I can't abide, son...a liar, and a
thief
!”

Denver shielded his face with his arms, but it was a hopeless case of far too little, far too late. With the force of a golfer’s swing the tire iron accelerated toward his head.

Mercifully, he didn’t feel the powerful crack.

SECURITY LEVEL: TOP SECRET

FOR:
Allen W. Dulles
, Director, Central Intelligence
DDCI, General Charles Pearre Cabell

FROM: Chief Howard D. Ross, Project SATURN

SUBJECT: AQUATONE

What began as a radical concept on our conference room table just over three years ago is now flying in the skies above Paradise Ranch.

Yesterday, the first U-2A (Article 341) took full flight from the enhanced runways here at the Ranch. Bissell was pleased with the performance of the aircraft and the early test data, cruising at just over 32,000 feet. Camera installation and test filming will commence on or about 1 September, 1955.

Implementation of TDS Film to study the progress of the Russian temporal program should be operational on or about 1 December, 1955.

Kelly Johnson has indicated that the remaining 21 aircraft will be delivered over the next 16 months.

END

DCI/PS

Being both a newspaper reporter
and
a newspaper editor, often resulted in many irregular experiences and in many irregular hours. But it had been some time since a big, breaking story had jerked Betty Larson out of a comfortable and deep sleep.

There had been several instances when she had passed on a late night event, preferring to cover it fresh first thing the very next morning. Here motto was: if it can wait, then I can sleep.

But when a police officer called just before two in the morning and revealed that the
Journal
had just been robbed, she was out the door and in her car within three and a half minutes.

As she headed into town, Betty thought back to the very first time she had received a late night call (she called them “bedside invitations”) to cover a breaking and fluid situation. Like tonight, the call was also late on a Sunday. It was near the end of the first week of July just over three years ago, and Betty had only recently stepped into the position as editor at the
Journal
.

She had been putting in at least sixteen-hour days during the difficult transition at the small town paper. When she wasn’t at the office going through filing cabinets, making calls, and writing stories, she was at home going through file folders, making calls, and writing stories.

In those days
food
,
friends
, and
fun
were merely three words in the dictionary she had only a passing familiarity with.

But on Sunday, July 5, 1953, Betty Larson was thoroughly exhausted, having worked well over eighty hours that week. With lingering fireworks sounding off in the distance, she crashed onto her bed, face first, clothing on, at 9:10 p.m. Her sweet and well-deserved coma-like state was barely two-hours old when the phone rang. Betty never even heard the first four rings, but the fifth through the twelfth led to a gradual regaining of consciousness.

She may have been dead to the world, but the policeman on the other end spoke of another type of death altogether.

It was a suicide.

And a strange suicide at that—that is, if any suicide could be considered
normal
.

A respected member of the community had—according to police reports—inexplicably blown his head off at his place of business. It was a tragic and horribly sad story all wrapped up in a bit of a mystery. There were so many unanswered questions, but the urgency of her new position, piled on top of her complete lack of editorial and emotional energy, brought the investigative piece to a forgotten standstill.

Phil Nelson’s death would make page one that following edition, but the follow-up that should have followed-up—well,
it never did
.

Thoughts and fears filled her mind as Betty came around the corner and pulled up beside the Chief’s squad car in front of the
Journal
. Her hand covered her mouth when she first glimpsed the gaping hole that was once her front entry.

The Chief was patiently standing vigil on the sidewalk next to Ike as she stepped out of her car. McCloud nodded as they walked towards her. “Evenin’ Betty. You remember Ike Sanders?”

She was still in shock. “What? Oh, I’m sorry, yes, yes, hello, Mr. Sanders. Chief.”

McCloud gestured towards the shattered door. She shook her head, peering in. “What, what happened?”

The Chief grinned. “I’ll tell ya what happened—looks like Ike here saved the day.”

She turned to the farmer. “Officer O’Connell told me that, uh, that you stopped the burglar. Thank you. Really. Thank you.”

“Actually, Ike stopped
one
of the
burglars
,” the Chief corrected, adding considerable emphasis to the last syllable.

“
Burglars?
” Betty asked.

The Chief nodded. “
Burglars
. There were at least two of them rascals. Billy’s out on patrol right now, keeping an eye out for anything unusual.”

She glanced inside at the complete mess. “So, uh, so what exactly happened Ike?”

The blushing farmer cleared his throat. “Well, my brother called about half-past-one this mornin’ and said one of his cows was in distress—she was calving. He was afraid to lose 'em both, so I jumped in my truck and was heading to his ranch when I saw lights moving inside yer place.” He pointed off into the distance. “I parked round yonder, grabbed a tire iron and, and—”

“And busted through the door and caught one of the robbers,” McCloud explained. “Laid ‘em out cold, actually.”

The editor was speechless. The Chief looked up at her. “Wanna see ‘em?”

Betty froze, but McCloud laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, he’s takin’ a nice nap right now. A good long nap.”

He led her over to the rear of his police car and opened the back door, revealing an unconscious form. The male perpetrator was lying on his back, hands securely cuffed.

She studied his bruised face in the dim light. “Who is he?”

The Chief closed the door gently. “We don't know,
yet
. He didn’t have any ID on ‘em. And Ike didn't get a good look at the other one, or other
ones
.”

She turned around to head into the office and patted the farmer on the shoulder. “Thanks, Ike. Really. This town owes you.”

“Just helpin' out a neighbor, Ma'am. What the good book says.” He smiled and then looked over at McCloud. “Chief, if I'm done here, I need to get over to Dillon’s. Probably too late, but—”

“Sure, Ike, sure. Billy can swing by tomorrow to get your official statement. See ya, and thanks.”

Betty picked her way carefully across the shattered threshold with McCloud trailing right behind. She stared down as each step crunched and popped beneath her.

McCloud apologized. “Sorry, Betty. We didn’t want to touch or clean anything up til after you’d had a chance to see what the Five Finger Discount Boys had done.”

She nodded. “That’s quite alright, Chief.” She stepped behind the counter and slid her hand around on the shelves.

“What’s wrong?” the Chief asked.

“It’s gone,” she answered, bending down and scanning the area. “The, uh, cash box. My cash box. It’s gone.”

He walked up to her, his heavy frame crunching quite a bit louder the entire way. “Any idea how much?”

She rose, wiping her hands. “Ballparking it, I would say thirty-five dollars, maybe forty?”

He gave a low whistle. “That’s a nice little chunk of change.”

She nodded and then the Chief followed her up the short hall to her office. Betty gasped as she stepped through the doorway. McCloud came up alongside the distraught editor and stared at the gaping hole in the opposite wall.

Betty’s eyes darted around, looking for the safe, or any remnants of its contents. The Chief tried to lighten the mood. “Lemme guess, you have an aggressive termite problem?”

She moved forward cautiously, examining everything. “No, I wish it were, Chief.” Betty glanced behind her desk. “It, uh, it looks like they got my safe, too.”

He eased into the center of the office. “Anything of value in there?”

She paused and stared at the hole for quite a while, lost in thought. “Maybe. Maybe,” she mumbled. “At least five bucks worth anyway.”

He turned towards her. “Excuse me?”

She bit her lower lip. “Oh, nothing.”

Betty rummaged through her desk drawers, not really sure if she would even notice if anything was actually missing amidst the clutter and her own confusion.

McCloud bent down and retrieved few curly metal shavings, obviously leftovers from the drilling. Betty stood up and noticed. “Find something, Chief?”

He covered them quickly. “Well, I thought so, but it was nothing.” He rose and hid the shavings in his pocket with all the skill of a practiced magician.

Betty navigated out from behind her desk, and he spun around and pointed towards the rear end of the hall. “They gained entrance through the back door. It's been forced open.”

She glanced around the corner and noted, “Just like the other robberies.”

The Chief agreed, but not too eagerly as he moved out. “Sure looks like it was all the same people. And we got one of ‘em,” he said.

Betty wandered back into the messy foyer and leaned on the counter.

“Billy's gonna camp out here tonight,” the Chief called out. “At least til we can get Bode down here first thing in the morning to get your doors fixed and secure.”

“Bode?”

He smiled. “Bode, Bodenschatz, Hank Bodenschatz.”

“Oh, yes—thanks, Chief. Really.”

He caught up with her by the front windows as she raised the blinds. “It’s what we do, Betty, remember—we are your public servants.”

They crunched their way back out onto the sidewalk, and the bewildered editor breathed a sigh as she gazed at the wreckage through the windows. McCloud strolled over to his car to check on Denver. “Listen Betty,” he said. “There's nothin' you can do tonight. Go home and grab some shuteye. We'll sort through everything in the mornin'.”

She couldn’t resist the wisdom of his guidance, but still protested. “Easier said than done, Chief. I doubt I'll sleep a wink tonight.”

“Well, at least
try
.” McCloud glanced in on Denver one more time. “I'm gonna haul Mystery Man here to the station and put 'em on ice. If he’s up to it, he'll face Judge Seyer tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday at the latest. Don’t worry, we’ll get ‘em to sing.”

Betty almost started to laugh at the simple irony of her situation. “You know, Chief, a newspaper office is supposed to
print
the news, not
be
the news.”

“Well, I’m sure your competition down at
The Pantagraph
are gonna be facin’ a real conundrum tomorrow,” he said.

“How’s that?” she responded, squinting a little.

“Well, they can’t hardly ignore covering somethin’ as big as a business robbery up here in Normal.” He grinned. “But I reckon it will just about make ‘em go ape at the thought of givin’ you free advertising!”

“This certainly isn’t the kind of publicity one would wish for, Chief.”

He smiled at her and stepped away from the car. “Ah, it’s not that bad. I’m in the news all the time.” He looked around and whispered. “I think the editor likes me.”

She chuckled and waved her hand at him. “I’ll see you in the morning, Chief.”

“Yes you will, Ms. Larson…yes, you will.”